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■VI*'. 















I 




I 


i 








« 


> 







' 


h. 








THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


OTHER BOOKS BY ELLEN 
GLASGOW 


THE ANCIENT LAW 
THE DELIVERANCE 
THE BATTLEGROUND 
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 
THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE 
THE FREEMAN^ AND OTHER POEMS 
PHASES OF AN INFERIOR PLANET 


THE DESCENDANT 



The Romance of a 
Plain Man 


By 

ELLEN GLASGOW 



GARDEN CITY, N. T., AND TORONTO 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
1922 



COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE k COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 


t 0 V \ \ 

> 3 

Kaplacttment 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
AT 

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. T, 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 





PAQR 

1. 

In which I APPEAR WITH FeW PRETENSIONS . 

. 

1 

11. 

The Enchanted Garden . 

• 

. , 

, 

16 

III. 

A Pair of Red Shoes 

• 

. . 

. 

34 

IV. 

In which I PLAY IN the Enchanted Garden 

. 

45 

V. 

In which I START IN LiFE 

. 

. . 

. 

58 

VI. 

Concerning Carrots . 

. 

. 

. 

72 

VII. 

In which I MOUNT THE FiRST RUNG OF THE LADDER 

87 

VIII. 

In which my Education Begins 

. 

. . 

. 

102 

IX. 

I LEARN A Little Latin and a Great Deal 

OF 



Life 




115 

X. 

In which I Grow Up . 

. 

. 

. 

127 

XI. 

In which I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A ! 

Fall 

. 

139 

XII. 

I WALK INTO THE COUNTRY AND 

MEET 

WITH 

AN 



Adventure .... 

. 

• • 

. 

154 

XIII. 

In WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS 

• • 

. 

165 

XIV. 

In which I TEST MY STRENGTH 

. 

• • 

. 

176 

XV. 

A Meeting in the Enchanted Garden 

• « 

. 

189 

XVI. 

In which Sally speaks her Mind 

. 

• • 

. 

199 

XVII. 

In which my Fortunes Rise . 

. 

• • 

. 

211 

XVIII. 

The Principles of Miss Matoaca 

. 

• • 

. 

220 

XIX. 

Shows the Triumph of Love . 

. 

• • 

. 

231 

XX. 

In which Society receives Us 

. 

• • 

. 

237 

XXL 

1 AM THE Wonder of the Hour 

. 

• • 

. 

247 

XXII. 

The Man and the Class . 

. 

• • 

. 

259 

XXIII. 

In which I WALK ON Thin Ice 

• 

• • 

, 

280 


y 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIV. In which I go Down 296 

XXV. We face the Facts and Each Other . . 306 
XXVI. The Red Flag at the Gate .... 317 
XXVII. We close the Door behind Us . . . . 331 

XXVIII. In W'hich Sally Stoops 343 

XXIX. In which we receive Visitors .... 358 

XXX. In which Sally Plans 376 

XXXI. The Deepest Shadow 391 

XXXII. I COME TO THE SURFACE 406 

XXXIII. The Growing Distance 430 

XXXIV. The Blow that Clears 445 

XXXV. The Ultimate Choice 459 




THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 



THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


CHAPTER I 

IN WHICH I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS 

As the storm broke and a shower of hail rattled Hke 
a handful of pebbles against our little window, I choked 
back a sob and edged my small green-painted stool a 
trifle nearer the hearth. On the opposite side of the 
wire fender, my father kicked off his wet boots, stretched 
his feet, in grey yarn stockings, out on the rag carpet 
in front of the Are, and reached for his pipe which he 
had laid, still smoking, on the floor under his chair. 

^Ht^s as true as the Bible, Benjy,^^ he said, ^Hhat on 
the day you were born yo’ brother President traded 
off my huntin’ breeches for a yaller pup.” 

My knuckles went to my eyes, while the smart of 
my mother’s slap faded from the cheek I had turned to 
the fire. 

'^What’s become o’ th’ p-p-up-p?” I demanded, as 
I stared up at him with my mouth held half open in 
readiness to break out again. 

'^Dead,” responded my father solemnly, and I wept 
aloud. 

It was an October evening in my childhood, and so 
vivid has my later memory of it become that I can still 
see the sheets of water that rolled from the lead 
pipe on our roof, and can still hear the splash ! splash 1 
s I 


2 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


with which they fell into the gutter below. For three 
days the clouds had hung in a grey curtain over the city, 
and at dawn a high wind, blowing up from the river, 
had driven the dead leaves from the churchyard like 
flocks of startled swallows into our little street. Since 
morning I had watched them across my mother ^s ^ ^ prize 
red geranium upon our window-sill — now whipped into 
deep swirls and eddies over the sunken brick pavement, 
now rising in sighing swarms against the closed doors of 
the houses, now soaring aloft until they flew almost as 
high as the living swallows in the belfry of old Saint 
John^s. Then as the dusk fell, and the street lamps 
glimmered like blurred stars through the rain, I drew 
back into our little sitting-room, which glowed bright 
as an ember against the fierce weather outside. 

Half an hour earlier my father had come up from 
the marble yard, where he spent his days cutting lambs 
and doves and elaborate ivy wreaths in stone, and the 
smell from his great rubber coat, which hung drying be- 
fore the kitchen stove, floated with the aroma of coffee 
through the half-open door. When I closed an eye and 
peeped through the crack, I could see my mother^s tall 
shadow, shifting, not flitting, on the whitewashed wall 
of the kitchen, as she passed back and forth from the 
stove to the wooden cradle in which my little sister 
Jessy lay asleep, with the head of her rag doll in her 
mouth. 

Outside the splash ! splash ! of the rain still sounded 
on the brick pavement, and as I glanced through the 
window, I saw an old blind negro beggar groping under 
the street lamp at the corner. The muffled beat of his 
stick in the drenched leaves passed our doorstep, and 


I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS 3 

I heard it grow gradually fainter as he turned in the 
direction of the negro hovels that bordered our end of 
the town. Across the street, and on either side of us, 
there were rows of small boxlike frame houses built 
with narrow door-ways, which opened from the side- 
walk into funny little kitchens, where women, in soiled 
calico dresses, appeared to iron all day long. It was 
the poorer quarter of what is known in Richmond as 

Church Hill,” a portion of the city which had been 
left behind in the earlier fashionable progress westward. 
Between us and modern Richmond there were several 
high hills, up which the poor dripping horses panted on 
summer days, a railroad station, and a broad slum-like 
bottom vaguely described as the '"Old Market.” Our 
prosperity, with our traditions, had crumbled around 
us, yet there were still left the ancient church, with its 
shady graveyard, and an imposing mansion or two in- 
herited from the forgotten splendour of former days. 
The other Richmond — that up-town ” I heard some- 
times mentioned — I had never seen, for my early 
horizon was bounded by the green hill, by the crawl- 
ing salmon-coloured James River at its foot, and by 
the quaint white belfry of the parish of old St. John^s. 
Beneath that belfry I had made miniature graves on 
summer afternoons, and as I sat now opposite to my 
father, with the bright fire between us, the memory of 
those crumbling vaults made me hug myself in the 
warmth, while I edged nearer the great black kettle 
singing before the fiames. 

^^Pa,” I asked presently, with an effort to resume 
the conversation along cheerful lines, ^^was it a he or 
a she pup ? ” 


4 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


My father turned his bright blue eyes from the fire, 
while his hand wandered, with an habitual gesture, to 
his coarse straw-coloured hair which stood, like mine, 
straight up from the forehead. 

'^Wall, 1^11 be blessed if I can recollect, Benjy,’^ 
he replied, and added after a moment, in which I knew 
that his slow wits were working over a fresh attempt 
at distraction, ^^but speaking of dawgs, it wouldn^t 
surprise me if yo^ ma was to let you have a bhled egg 
for yo^ supper.^^ 

Again the storm was averted. He was so handsome, 
so soft, so eager to make everybody happy, that al- 
though he did not deceive even my infant mind for a 
minute, I felt obliged by sheer force of sympathy to 
step into the amiable snare he laid. 

Hard or soft ? I demanded. 

'^Now that^s a matter of chhce, ain’t it?” he rejoined, 
wrinkling his forehead as if awed by the gravity of the 
decision; '^but bein’ a plain man with a taste for solids, 
I’d say ^hard’ every time.” 

^^Hard, ma,” I repeated gravely through the crack 
of the door to the shifting shape on the kitchen 
wall. Then, while he stooped over in the firelight 
to prod fresh tobacco into his pipe, I began again my 
insatiable quest for knowledge which had brought 
me punishment at the hand of my mother an hour 
before. 

^^Pa, who named me?” 

^^Yo’ ma.” 

^^Did ma name you, too?” 

He shook his head, doubtfully, not negatively. 
Above his short growth of beard his cheeks had warmed 


I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS 


5 


to a clear pink, and his foolish blue eyes were as soft 
as the eyes of a baby. 

Wall, I can’t say she did that — exactly.” 

''Then who did name you?” 

"I don’t recollect. My ma, I reckon.” 

"Did ma name me Ben Starr, or just Ben?” 

"Just Ben. You were born Starr.” 

"Was she born Starr, too?” 

"Good Lord, no, she was born Savage.” 

"Then why warn’t I born Savage?” 

"Because she married me an’ I was born Starr.” 

I gave it up with a sigh. "Who had the most to 
do with my cornin’ here, God or ma?” I asked after a 
minute. 

My father hesitated as if afraid of committing him- 
self to an heretical utterance. "I ain’t so sure,” he 
replied at last, and added immediately in a louder 
tone, "Yo’ ma, I s’pose.” 

"Then why don’t I say my prayers to ma instead of 
to God?” 

"I wouldn’t begin to worry over that at my age, 
if I were you,” replied my father, with angelic patience, 
"seein’ as it’s near supper time an’ the kettle’s a-bilin’.” 

"But I want to know, pa, why it was that I came 
to be named just Ben?” 

"To be named just Ben?” he repeated slowly, as if 
the fact had been brought for the first time to his 
attention. "Wall, I reckon ’twas because we’d had 
considerable trouble over the namin’ of the first, which 
was yo’ brother President. That bein’ the turn of the 
man of the family, I calculated that as a plain Ameri- 
can citizen, I couldn’t do better than show I hadn’t 


6 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


any ill feelin^ agin the Government. I don^t recollect 
just what the name of the gentleman at the head of 
the Nation was, seein’ ^twas goin^ on sixteen years ago, 
but I^d made up my mind to call the infant in the 
cradle arter him, if heM ever answered my letter — 
which he never did. It was then yo^ ma an^ I had 
words because she didn^t want a child of hers named 
arter such a bad-mannered, stuck-up, ornary sort. 
President or no President. She raised a terrible 
squall, but I held out against her,^^ he went on, dropping 
his voice, ^^an^ I stood up for it that as long as Hwas 
the office an^ not the man I was complimentin^, I^d 
name him arter the office, which I did on the spot. 
When Hwas over an^ done the notion got into my head 
an’ kind of tickled me, an’ when you came at last, 
arter the four others in between, that died befo’ they 
took breath, I was a’ready to name you 'Governor’ 
if yo’ ma had been agreeable. But ’twas her turn, so 
she called you arter her Uncle Benjamin — ” 

"What’s become o’ Uncle Benjamin?” I interrupted, 
"Dead,” responded my father, and for the third 
time I wept. 

"I declar’ that child’s been goin’ on like that for the 
last hour,” remarked my mother, appearing upon the 
threshold. "Thar, thar, Benjy boy, stop cryin’ an’ 
I’ll let you go to old Mr. Cudlip’s burial to-morrow.” 

"May I go, too, ma?” enquired President, who had 
come in with a lighted lamp in his hand. He was a 
big, heavy, overgrown boy, and his head was already 
on a level with his father’s. 

"Not if I know it,” responded my mother tartly, 
for her temper was rising and she looked tired and 


I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS 


7 


anxiaus. take Benjy along because he can crowd 

in an^ nobody’ll mind.” 

She moved a step nearer while her shadow loomed to 
gigantic proportions on the whitewashed wall. Her 
thin brown hair, partially streaked with grey, was 
brushed closely over her scalp, and this gave her profile 
an angularity that became positively grotesque in the 
shape behind her. Across her forehead there were 
three deep frowning wrinkles, which did not disappear 
even when she smiled, and her sad, flint-coloured eyes 
held a perplexed and anxious look, as if she were trying 
always to remember something which was very im- 
portant and which she had half forgotten. I had never 
seen her, except when she went to funerals, dressed 
otherwise than in a faded grey calico with a faded grey 
shawl crossed tightly over her bosom and drawn to the 
back of her waist, where it was secured by a safety pin 
of an enormous size. Beside her my father looked so 
young and so amiable that I had a confused impression 
that he had shrunk to my own age and importance. 
Then my mother retreated into the kitchen and he 
resumed immediately his natural proportions. After 
thirty years, when I think now of that ugly little room, 
with its painted pine furniture, with its coloured glass 
vases, filled with dried cat-tails, upon the mantelpiece, 
with its crude red and yellow print of a miniature David 
attacking a colossal Goliath, with its narrow window- 
panes, where beyond the prize” red geranium the wind 
drove the fallen leaves over the brick pavement, with 
its staring whitewashed walls, and its hideous rag 
carpet — when I think of these vulgar details it is to 
find that they are softened in my memory by a 


8 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


sense of peace, of shelter, and of warm firelight 
shadows. 

My mother had just laid the supper table, over which 
I had watched her smooth the clean red and white 
cloth with her twisted fingers; President was proudly 
holding aloft a savoury dish of broiled herrings, and 
my father had pinned on my bib and drawn back the 
green-painted chair in which I sat for my meals — 
when a hurried knock at the door arrested each one of 
us in his separate attitude as if he had been instantly 
petrified by the sound. 

There was a second^s pause, and then before my 
father could reach it, the door opened and shut violently, 
and a woman, in a dripping cloak, holding a little girl by 
the hand, came from the storm outside, and ran straight 
to the fire, where she stood shaking the child^s wet 
clothes before the flames. As the light fell over them, 
I saw that the woman was young and delicate and 
richly dressed, with a quantity of pale brown hair 
which the rain and wind had beaten flat against her 
small frightened face. At the time she was doubtless 
an unusually pretty creature to a grown-up pair of 
eyes, but my gaze, burning with curiosity, passed 
quickly over her to rest upon the little girl, who pos- 
sessed for me the attraction of my own age and size. 
She wore red shoes, I saw at my first glance, and a 
white cloak, which I took to be of fur, though it was 
probably made of some soft, fuzzy cloth I had never 
seen. There was a white cap on her head, held by an 
elastic band under her square little chin, and about her 
shoulders her hair lay in a profuse, drenched mass of 
brown, which reminded me in the firelight of the 


I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS 


9 


colour of wet November leaves. She was soaKed 
through, and yet as she stood there, with her teeth 
chattering in the warmth, I was struck by the courage, 
almost the defiance, with which she returned my gaze. 
Baby that she was, I felt that she would scorn to cry 
while my glance was upon her, though there were 
fresh tear marks on her flushed cheeks, and around her 
solemn grey eyes that were made more luminous by 
her broad, heavily arched black eyebrows, which gave 
her an intense and questioning look. The memory 
of this look, which was strange in so young a child, 
remained with me after the colour of her hair and every 
charming feature in her face were forgotten. Years 
afterwards I think I could have recognised her in a 
crowded street by the mingling of light with darkness, 
of intense black with clear grey, in her sparkling glance. 

followed the wrong turn,’^ said the pale little 
woman, breathing hard with a pitiable, frightened 
sound, while my mother took her dripping cloak from 
her shoulders, ^^and I could not keep on because of the 
rain which came up so heavily. If I could only reach 
the foot of the hill I might find a carriage to take me 
up“town.^^ 

My father had sprung forward as she entered, and 
was vigorously stirring the fire, which blazed and 
crackled merrily in the open grate. She accepted 
thankfully my mother’s efforts to relieve her of her 
wet wraps, but the little girl drew back haughtily 
when she was approached, and refused obstinately to 
slip out of her cloak, from which the water ran in 
streams to the floor. 

^‘1 don’t like it here, mamma, it is a common place,” 


10 


THE EOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


ehe said, in a clear childish voice, and though I hardly 
grasped the meaning of her words, her tone brought to 
me for the first time a feeling of shame for my humble 
surroundings. 

“Hush, Sally,” replied her mother, “you must dry 
yourself. These people are very kind.” 

“But I thought we were going to grandmama^s ? ” 

“Grandmama lives up-town, and we are going as 
soon as the storm has blown over. There, be a good 
girl and let the little boy take your wet cap.” 

“I donT want him to take my cap. He is a common 
boy.” 

In spite of the fact that she seemed to me to be the 
most disagreeable little girl I had ever met, the word 
she had used was lodged unalterably in my memory. 
In that puzzled instant, I think, began my struggle 
to rise out of the class in which I belonged by birth; 
and I remember that I repeated the word “common” 
in a -ijvhisper to myself, while I resolved that I would 
learn its meaning in order that I might cease to be the 
unknown thing that it implied. 

My mother, who had gone into the kitchen with the 
dripping cloak in her arms, returned a moment later 
with a cup of steaming coffee in one hand and a mug 
of hot milk in the other. 

“It’s a mercy if you haven’t caught your death with 
an inner chill,” she observed in a brisk, kindly tone. 
“’Twas the way old Mr. Cudlip, whose funeral I’m going 
to to-morrow, came to his end, and he was as hale, 
red-faced a body as you ever laid eyes on.” 

The woman received the cup gratefully, and I could see 
her poor thin hands tremble as she raised it to her lips. 


I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS li 

Drink the warm milk, dear,” she said pleadingly 
to the disagreeable little girl, who shook her head and 
drew back with a stiff childish gesture. 

not hungry, thank you,^^ she replied to my 
mother in her sweet, clear treble. To all further en- 
treaties she returned the same answer, standing there a 
haughty, though drenched and battered infant, in her 
soiled white cloak and her red shoes, holding her mop 
of a muff tightly in both hands. 

‘^I^m not hungry, thank you,^^ she repeated, adding 
presently in a manner of chill politeness, “give it to 
the boy.'' 

But the boy was not hungry either, and when my 
mother, finally taking her at her word, turned, in ex- 
asperation, and offered the mug to me, I declined it, 
also, and stood nervously shifting from one foot to the 
other, while my hands caught and twisted the fringe 
of the table-cloth at my back. The big grey eyes of 
the little girl looked straight into mine, but there was 
no hint in them that she was aware of my existence. 
Though her teeth were chattering, and she knew I 
heard them, she did not relax for an instant from her 
scornful attitude. 

“We were just about to take a mouthful of supper, 
mum, an' we'd be proud if you an' the little gal would 
jine us," remarked my father, with an eager hospitality. 

“I thank you," replied the woman in her pretty, 
grateful manner, “but the coffee has restored my 
strength, and if you will direct me to the hill, I shall 
be quite able to go on again." 

A step passed close to the door on the pavement 
outside, and I saw her start and clutch the child to her 


12 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


bosom with trembling hands. As she stood there in 
her shaking terror, I remembered a white kitten I 
had once seen chased by boys into the area of a de- 
serted house. 

— if anyone should come to enquire after me, 
will you be so good as to say nothing of my having 
been here?^^ she asked. 

“To be sure I will, with all the pleasure in life,” 
responded my father, who, it was evident even to me, 
had become a victim to her distressed loveliness. 

Emboldened by the effusive politeness of my parent, 
I went up to the little girl and shyly offered her a blos- 
som from my mother^s geranium upon the window-sill. 
A scrap of a hand, as cold as ice when it touched mine, 
closed over the stem of the flower, and without looking 
at me, she stood, very erect, with the scarlet geranium 
grasped stiffly between her Angers. 

“I’ll take you to the bottom of the hill myself,” 
protested my father, “but I wish you could persuade 
yourself to try a bite of food befo’ you set out in the 
rain.” 

“It is important that I should lose no time,” an- 
swered the woman, drawing her breath quickly through 
her small white teeth, “but I fear that I am taking 
you away from your supper?” 

“Not at all, you will not deprive me in the least,” 
stammered my father, blushing up to his ears, while 
his straight flaxen hair appeared literally to rise with 
embarrassment. “I — I — the fact is I’m not an 
eater, mum.” 

For an instant, remembering the story of Ananias 
I had heard in Sunday-school, I looked round in terror, 


I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS 


13 


half expecting to hear the dreadful feet of the young 
men on the pavement. But he passed scathless for 
the hour at least, and our visitor had turned to re- 
ceive her half-dried cloak from my mother^s hands, 
when her face changed suddenly to a more deadly 
pallor, and seizing the little girl by the shoulder, she 
fled, like a small frightened animal, across the thresh- 
old into the kitchen. 

My father ^s hand had barely reached the knob of the 
street door, when it opened and a man in a rubber 
coat entered, and stopped short in the centre of the 
room, where he stood blinking rapidly in the lamplight. 
I heard the rain drip with a soft pattering sound from 
his coat to the floor, and when he wheeled about, after 
an instant in which his glance searched the room, 
I saw that his face was flushed and his eyes swimming 
and bloodshot. There was in his look, as I remember 
it now, something of the inflamed yet bridled cruelty 
of a bird of prey. 

^^Have you noticed a lady with a little girl go by?^' 
he enquired. 

At his question my father fell back a step or two 
until he stood squarely planted before the door into 
the kitchen. Though he was a big man, he was not so 
big as the other, who towered above the dried cat-tails 
in a china vase on the mantelpiece. 

'^Are you sure they did not pass here?^^ asked the 
stranger, and as he turned his head the dried pollen 
was loosened from the cat-tails and drifted in an ashen 
dust to the hearth. 

'^No, I’ll stake my word on that. They ain’t passed 
here yet,” replied my father. 


u 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


With an angry gesture the other shook his rubber 
coat over our bright little carpet, and passed out again, 
slamming the door violently behind him. Running to 
the window, I lifted the green shade, and watched his 
big black figure splashing recklessly through the heavy 
puddles under the faint yellowish glimmer of the 
street lamp at the corner. The light flickered feebly 
on his rubber coat and appeared to go out in the stream? 
of water that fell from his shoulders. 

When I looked round I saw that the woman had come 
back into the room, still grasping the little girl by the 
hand. 

'^No, no, I must go at once. It is necessary that I 
should go at once,’' she repeated breathlessly, looking 
up in a dazed way into my mother’s face. 

^'If you must you must, an’ what ain’t my business 
ain’t,” replied my mother a trifle sharply, while she 
wrapped a grey woollen comforter of her own closely 
over the head and shoulders of the little girl, ^^but if 
you’d take my advice, which you won’t, you’d turn this 
minute an’ walk straight back home to yo’ husband.” 

But the woman only shook her head with its drenched 
mass of soft brown hair. 

^^We must go, Sally, mustn’t we?” she said to the 
child. 

^^Yes, we must go, mamma,” answered the little girl, 
still grasping the stem of the red geranium between 
her fingers. 

'^That bein’ the case. I’ll get into my coat with all 
the pleasure in life an’ see you safe,” remarked my 
father, with a manner that impressed me as little short 
of the magnificent. 


I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS 


15 


^'But I hate to take you away from home on such a 
terrible night 

^^Oh, don^t mention the weather/' responded my 
gallant parent, while he struggled into his rubber shoes ; 
and he added quite handsomely, after a flourish which 
appeared to set the elements at defiance, ^‘arter all, 
weather is only weather, mum." 

As nobody, not even my mother, was found to 
challenge the truth of this statement, the child was 
warmly wrapped up in an old blanket shawl, and my 
father lifted her in his arms, while the three set out 
under a big cotton umbrella for the brow of the hill. 
President and I peered after them from the window, 
screening our eyes with our hollowed palms, and 
flattening our noses against the icy panes ; but in spite 
of our efforts we could only discern dimly the shape of 
the umbrella rising like a miniature black mountain 
out of the white blur of the fog. The long empty street 
with the wind-drifts of dead leaves, the pale glimmer 
of the solitary light at the far corner, the steady splash ! 
splash ! of the rain as it fell on the brick pavement, 
the bitter draught that blew in over the shivering 
geranium upon the sill — all these brought a lump to 
my throat, and I turned back quickly into our cheerful 
little room, where my untasted supper awaited me. 


CHAPTER II 


THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 

The funeral was not until nine o^clock, but at seven 
my mother served us a cold breakfast in order, as she 
said, that she might get the dishes washed and the 
house tidied before we started. Gathering about the 
bare table, we ate our dismal meal in a depressed silence, 
while she bustled back and forth from the kitchen in 
her holiday attire, which consisted of a stiff' black 
bombazine dress and the long rustling crape veil she 
had first put on at the death of her uncle Benjamin, 
some twenty years before. As her only outings were 
those occasioned by the deaths of her neighbours, I 
suppose her costume was quite as appropriate as it 
seemed to my childish eyes. Certainly, as she appeared 
before me in her hard, shiny, very full bombazine skirt 
and attenuated bodice, I regarded her with a reverence 
which her everyday calico had never inspired. 

ain^t et a mouthful an^ I doubt if I’ll have time 
to befo’ we start,” she was saying in an irritable voice, 
as I settled into my bib and my chair. '^Anybody 
might have thought I’d be allowed to attend a funeral 
in peace, but I shan’t be, — no, not even when it comes 
to my own.” 

‘^Thar’s plenty of time yet, Susan,” returned my 
father cheerfully, while he sawed at the cold corn- 
16 


THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 


17 


bread on the table. YouVe got a good hour an^ mo’ 
befo’ you.” 

''An’ the things to wash up an’ the house to tidy 
in my veil and bonnet. Thar ain’t many women, I 
reckon, that would wash up china in a crape veil, but 
I’ve done it befo’ an’ I’m used to it.” 

"Why don’t you lay off yo’ black things till you’re 
through?” 

His suggestion was made innocently enough, but it 
appeared, as he uttered it, to be the one thing needed 
to sharpen the edge of my mother’s temper. The 
three frowning lines deepened across her forehead, and 
she stared straight before her with her perplexed and 
anxious look under her rustling crape. 

"Yes, I’ll take ’em off an’ lay ’em away an’ git back 
to work,” she rejoined. "It did seem as if I might 
have taken a holiday at a time like this — my next 
do’ neighbour, too, an’ I’d al’ays promised him I’d 
see him laid safe in the earth. But, no, I can’t do it. 
I’ll go take off my veil an’ bonnet an’ stay at home.” 

Before this attack my father grew so depressed that 
I half expected to see tears fall into his cup of coffee, 
as they had into mine. His handsome gayety dropped 
from him, and he looked as downcast as was possible 
for a face composed of so many flagrantly cheerful 
features. 

"I declar, Susan, I wa’nt thinkin’ of that,” he re- 
turned apologetically, "it just seemed to me that 
you’d be mo’ comfortable without that sheet of crape 
floatin’ down yo’ back.” 

"I’ve never been comfortable in my life,” retorted 
my mother, "an’ I don’t expect to begin when I dress 


18 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


myself to go to a funeral. It^s got to be, I reckon, an’ 
it’s what I’m used to; but if thar’s a man alive that 
would stand over a stove with a crape veil on his 
head, I’d be obliged to him if he’d step up an’ show 
his face.” 

At this point the half-grown girl who had promised 
to look after the baby arrived, and with her assistance, 
my mother set about putting the house in order, while 
my father, as soon as his luncheon basket was packed, 
wished us a pleasant drive, and started for old Timothy 
Ball’s marble yard, where he worked. At the sink in 
the kitchen my mother, with her crape veil pinned 
back, and her bombazine sleeves rolled up, stood with 
her arms deep in soapsuds. 

^^Ma,” I asked, going up to her and turning my 
back while she unfastened my bib with one soapy 
hand, '^did you ever hear anybody call you common?” 

^^Call me what?” 

Common. What does it mean when anybody calls 
you common?” 

'^It means generally that anybody is a fool.” 

'^Then am I, ma?” 

^^Air you what?” 

Am I common?” 

''For the Lord’s sake, Benjy, stop yo’ pesterin’. 
What on earth has gone an’ set that idee workin’ in- 
side yo’ head?” 

"Is pa common?” 

She meditated an instant. "Wall, he wa’nt born a 
Savage, but I’d never have called him common — 
exactly,” she answered. 

"Then perhaps you are?” 


THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 


19 


^^You talk like a fool! Haven^t I told you that I 
wa’nt?” she snapped. 

^^Then if you ain^t an^ pa ain^t exactly, how can I 
be?^^ I concluded with triumph. 

Whoever said you were? Show me the person.^^ 
^^It wa’nt a person. It was a little girl.^^ 

little girl? You mean the half-drowned brat I 
wrapped up in yo’ grandma^s old blanket shawl I set 
the muffin dough under? To think of my sendin’ yo’ 
po’ tired pa splashin^ out with ^em into the rain. So 
she called you common?^’ 

But the sound of a carriage turning the corner fell 
on my ears, and running hastily into the sitting-room, 
I opened the door and looked out eagerly for signs of 
the approaching funeral. 

A bright morning had followed the storm, and the 
burnislied leaves, so restless the day before, lay now 
wet and still under the sunshine. I had stepped 
joyously over the threshold, to the sunken brick pave- 
ment, when my mother, moved by a sudden anxiety 
for my health, called me back, and in spite of my 
protestations, wrapped me in a grey blanket shawl, 
which she fastened at my throat with the enormous 
safety-pin she had taken from her own waist. Much 
embarrassed by this garment, which dragged after me 
as I walked, I followed her sullenly out of the house 
and as far as our neighbour's doorstep, where I was 
ordered to sit down and wait until the service was 
over. As the stir of her crape passed into the little 
hall, I seated myself obediently on the single step 
which led straight from the street, and made faces, 
during the long wait, at the merry driver of the hearse 


20 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


— a decrepit negro of ancient days, who grinned pro- 
vokingly at the figure I cut in my blanket shawl. 

'^Hi! honey, is you got on swaddlin^ close er a 
windin’ sheet?” he enquired. ‘^I’se a-gittin’ near 
bline en I cyarn mek out.” 

^^You jest wait till I’m bigger an’ I’ll show you,” 
was my peaceable rejoinder. 

Wat’s dat you gwine sho’ me, boy? I reckon I’se 
done seed mo’ curus things den you in my lifetime.” 

I looked up defiantly. Between the aristocratic, if 
fallen, negro and myself there was all the instinctive 
antagonism that existed in the Virginia of that period 
between the ^ Equality” and the ^^poor white trash.” 

^^If you don’t lemme alone you’ll see mo’n you 
wan ter.” 

'^Whew! I reckon you gwine tu’n out sump’im’ 
moughty outlandish, boy. I’se a-lookin’ wid all my 
eyes an I cyarn see nuttin’ at all.” 

^^Wait till I’m bigger an’ you’ll see it,” I answered. 

^^I’se sho’ly gwine ter wait, caze ef’n hits mo’ curus 
den you is en dat ar windin’ sheet, hit’s a sight dat 
I’se erbleeged ter lay eyes on. Wat’s yo’ name, suh?” 
he enquired, with a mocking salute. 

'^I am Ben Starr,” I replied promptly, ^^an’ if 
you wait till I get bigger. I’ll bus’ you open.” 

“Hi! hi! wat you wanter bus’ me open fur, boy? 
Is you got a pa?” 

“He’s Thomas Starr, an’ he cuts lambs and doves 
on tombstones. I’ve seen ’em, an’ I’m goin’ to learn 
to cut ’em, too, when I grow up. I like lambs.” 

The door behind me opened suddenly without warn- 
ing, and as I scrambled from the doorstep, my enemy. 


THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 


21 


the merry driver, backed his creaking vehicle to the 
sidewalk across which the slow procession of mourners 
filed. A minute later I was caught up by my mother^s 
hand, and borne into a carriage, where I sat tightly 
wedged between two sombre females. 

'"So youVe brought yo^ little boy along, Mrs. Starr,” 
remarked a third from the opposite seat, in an aggres- 
sive voice. 

^'Yes, he had a cold an^ I thought the air might 
do him good,” replied my mother with her society 
manner. 

'^Wall, IVe nine an' not one of 'em has ever been 
to a funeral,” returned the questioner. ^^I've al'ays 
been set dead against 'em for children, ain't you, Mrs. 
Boxley?” 

Mrs. Boxley, a placid elderly woman, who had 
already begun to doze in her corner, opened her eyes 
and smiled on me in a pleasant and friendly way. 

^^To tell the truth I ain't never been able really to 
enjoy a child's funeral,” she replied. 

^'I'm sure we're all mighty glad to have him along, 
Mrs. Starr,” observed the fourth woman, who was 
soft and peaceable and very fat. ^^He's a fine, strong 
boy now, ain't he, ma'am?” 

'^Middlin' strong. I hope he ain't crowdin' you. 
Edge closer to me, Benjy.” 

I edged closer until her harsh bombazine sleeve 
seemed to scratch the skin from my cheek. Mrs. 
Boxley had dozed again, and sinking lower on the 
seat, I had just prepared myself to follow her example, 
when a change in the conversation brought my wan- 
dering wits instantly together, and I sat bolt upright 


22 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


while my eyes remained fixed on the small, straggling 
houses we were passing. 

^'Yes, she would go, rain or no rain,’^ my mother 
was saying, and I knew that in that second^s snatch 
of sleep she had related the story of our last evening^s 
adventure. '^To be sure she may have been all she 
ought to be, but I must say I can^t help mistrustin' 
that little, palaverin' kind of a woman with eyes like a 
scared rabbit." 

^^If it was Sarah Mickleborough, an' I think it was, 
she had reason enough to look scared, po' thing," 
observed Mrs. Kidd, the soft fat woman, who sat on 
my left side. '^They've only lived over here in the 
old Adams house for three months, but the neigh- 
bours say he's almost killed her twice since they 
moved in. She came of mighty set up, high falutin' 
folks, you know, an' when they wouldn't hear of the 
marriage, she ran off with him one night about ten 
years ago just after he came home out of the army. He 
looked fine, they say, in uniform, on his big black 
horse, but after the war ended he took to drink and 
then from drink, as is natchel, he took to beatin' her. 
It's strange — ain't it? — how easily a man's hand 
turns against a woman once he's gone out of his 
head?" 

''Ah, I could see that she was the sort that's obliged 
to be beaten sooner or later if thar was anybody 
handy around to do it," remarked my mother. "Some 
women are made so that they're never happy except 
when they're hurt, an' she's one of 'em. Why, they 
can't so much as look at a man without invitin' him 
to ill-treat 'em," 


THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 


23 


^^Thar ain^t many women that know how to deal 
with a husband as well as you an^ Mrs. Cudlip/' re- 
marked Mrs. Kidd, with delicate flattery. 

‘^Po^ Mrs. Cudlip. I hope she is bearin’ up,” sighed 
my mother. ^^’Twas the leg he lost at Seven Pines 
— wasn’t it? — that supported her?” 

^^That an’ the cheers he bottomed. The last work 
he did, po’ man, was for Mrs. Mickleborough of whom 
we were speakin’. I used to hear of her befo’ the war 
when she was pretty Miss Sarah Bland, in a white 
poke bonnet with pink roses.” 

‘^An’ now never a day passes, they say, that Harry 
Mickleborough doesn’t threaten to turn her an’ the 
child out into the street.” 

^^Are her folks still livin’? Why doesn’t she go 
back to them?” 

'^Her father died six months after the marriage, an’ 
the rest of ’em live up-town somewhar. The only 
thing that’s stuck to her is her coloured mammy, 
Aunt Euphronasia, an’ they tell me that that old 
woman has mo’ influence over Harry Mickleborough 
than anybody livin’. When he gets drunk an’ goes 
into one of his tantrums she walks right up to him 
an’ humours him like a child.” 

As we drove on their voices grew gradually muffled 
and thin in my ears, and after a minute, in which I 
clung desperately to my eluding consciousness, my 
head dropped with a soft thud upon Mrs. Kidd’s 
inviting bosom. The next instant I was jerked vio- 
lently erect by my mother and ordered sternly to 
^'keep my place an’ not to make myself a nuisance by 
spreadin’ about.” With this admonition in my ears, 


24 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


I pinched my leg and sat staring with heavy eyes out 
upon the quiet street, where the rolling of the slow 
wheels over the fallen leaves was the only sound that 
disturbed the silence. After ten bitter years the city 
was still bound by the terrible lethargy which had 
immediately succeeded the war; and on Church Hill 
it » seemed almost as if we had been forgotten like the 
breastworks and the battle-fields in the march of 
progress. The grip of poverty, which was fiercer than 
the grip of armies, still held us, and the few stately 
houses showed tenantless and abandoned in the midst 
of their ruined gardens. Sometimes I saw an old 
negress in a coloured turban come out upon one of 
the long porches and stare after us, her pipe in her 
mouth and her hollowed palm screening her eyes ; and 
once a noisy group of young mulattoes emerged from 
an alley and followed us curiously for a few blocks 
along the sidewalk. 

Withdrawing my gaze from the window, I looked 
enviously at Mrs. Boxley, who snored gently in her 
corner. Then for the second time sleep overpowered 
me, and in spite of my struggles, I sank again on Mrs. 
Kidd^s bosom. 

^'Thar, now, don^t think of disturbing him, Mrs. 
Starr. He ainT the least bit in my way. I can look 
right over his head,^^ I heard murmured over me as I 
slid blissfully into unconsciousness. 

What happened after this I was never able to 
remember, for when I came clearly awake again, we 
had reached our door, and my mother was shaking 
me in the effort to make me stand on my feet. 

^^He^s gone and slept through the whole thing, she 


THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 


25 


remarked irritably to President, while I stumbled after 
them across the pavement, with the fringed ends of 
my blanket shawl rustling the leaves. 

'^He^s too little. You might have let me go, ma,^' 
replied President, as he dragged me, sleepy eyes, 
ruffled flaxen hair, and trailing shawl over the door- 
step. 

^^An^ you^re too big,’^ retorted my mother, removing 
the long black pins from her veil, and holding them 
in her mouth while she carefully smoothed and folded 
the lengths of crape. You could never have squeezed 
in between us, an’ as it was Mrs. Kidd almost overlaid 
Benjy. But you didn’t miss much,” she hastened to 
assure him, ‘‘1 declar’ I thought at one time we’d 
never get on it all went so slowly.” 

Having placed her bonnet and veil in the tall white 
bandbox upon the table, she hurried off to prepare our 
dinner, while President urged me in an undertone to 
^^sham sick” that afternoon so that he wouldn’t have 
to take me out for an airing on the hill. 

^^But I want to go,” I responded selfishly, wide 
awake at the prospect. want to see the old Adams 
house where the little girl lives.” 

^Hf you go I can’t play checkers, an’ it’s downright 
mean. What do you care about little girls? They 
ain’t any good.” 

'^But this little girl has got a drunken father.” 

'^Well, you won’t see him anyway, so what is the 
use?” 

'"She lives in a big house an’ it’s got a big garden 
— as big as that!” I streched out my arms in a 
vain attempt to impress his imagination^ but he merely 


26 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

looked scornful and swore a mighty vow that he’d 
jiggered if he’d keep on playin’ nurse-girl to a muff.” 

At the time he put my pleading sternly aside, but a 
couple of hours later, when the afternoon was already 
waning, he relented sufficiently to take me out on the 
ragged hill, which was covered thickly with poke- 
berry, yarrow, and stunted sumach. Before our feet 
the ground sank gradually to the sparkling river, and 
farther away I could see the silhouette of an anchored 
vessel etched boldly against the rosy clouds of the 
sunset. 

As I stood there, holding fast to his hand, in the 
high wind that blew up from the river, a stout gentle- 
man, leaning heavily on a black walking-stick, with a 
big gold knob at the top, came panting up the slope 
and paused beside us, with his eyes on the western 
sky. He was hale, handsome, and ruddy-faced, with 
a bunch of iron-grey whiskers on either cheek, and a 
vivacious and merry eye which seemed to catch at a 
twinkle whenever it met mine. His rounded stomach 
was spanned by a massive gold watch-chain, from 
which dangled a bunch of seals that delighted my 
childish gaze. 

'Ht’s a fine view,” he observed pleasantly, patting 
my shoulder as if I were in some way responsible for 
the river, the anchored vessel, and the rosy sunset. 
'H moved up-town as soon as the war ended, but I 
still manage to crawl back once in a while to watch 
the afterglow.” 

Where does the sun go,” I asked, “when it slips 
way down there on the other side of the river?” 

The gentleman smiled benignly, and I saw from his 


THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 


27 


merry glance that he did not share my mother’s hos- 
tility to the enquiring mind. 

^^Well, I shouldn’t be surprised if it went to the 
wrong side of the world for little boys and girls over 
there to get up by,” he replied. 

'^May I go there, too, when I’m big?” 

''To the wrong side of the world? You may, who 
knows?” 

"Have you ever been there? What is it like?” 

"Not yet, not yet, but there’s no telling. I’ve been 
across the ocean, though, and that’s pretty far. I 
went once in a ship that ran through the blockade 
and brought in a cargo of Bibles.” 

"What did you want with so many Bibles? We’ve 
got one. It has gilt clasps.” 

"Want with the Bibles! Why, every one of these 
Bibles, my boy, may have saved a soul.” 

"Has our Bible saved a soul? An’ whose soul was 
it? It stays on our centre table, an’ my name’s in it. 
I’ve seen it.” 

"Indeed! and what may your name be?” 

"Ben Starr. That’s my name. What is yours? 
Is yo’ name in the Bible ? Does everybody’s name 
have to be in the Bible if they’re to be saved? Who 
put them in there? Was it God or the angels? If I 
blot my name out can I still go to heaven? An’ if 
yours isn’t in there will you have to be damned? 
Have you ever been damned an’ what does it feel 
like?” 

"Shut up, Benjy, or ma’ll wallop you,” growled 
President, squeezing my hand so hard that I cried 
aloud. 


28 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

''Ah, he's a fine boy, a promising boy, a remarkable 
boy," observed the gentleman, with one finger in his 
waistcoat pocket. "Wouldn't you like to grow up and 
be President, my enquiring young friend?" 

"No, sir, I'd rather be God," I replied, shaking my 
head. 

All the gentleman's merry grey eyes seemed to run 
to sparkles. 

"Ah, there's nothing, after all, like the true Ameri- 
can spirit," he said, patting my shoulder. Then he 
laughed so heartily that his gold-rimmed eye-glasses 
fell from his eyes and dangled in the air at the end of 
a silk cord. "I'm afraid your aspiration is too lofty 
for my help," he said, "but if you should happen to 
grow less ambitious as you grow older, then remem- 
ber, please, that my name is General Bolingbroke." 

"Why, you're the president of the Great South 
Midland and Atlantic Railroad, sir !" exclaimed Presi- 
dent, admiring and embarrassed. 

The General sighed, though even I could see that 
this simple tribute to his fame had not left him un- 
moved. "Ten years ago I was the man who tried to 
save Johnston's army, and to-day I am only a railroad 
president," he answered, half to himself; "times 
change and fames change almost as quickly. When all 
is said, however, there may be more lasting honour in 
building a country's trade than in winning a battle. 
I'll have a tombstone some day and I want written on 
it, 'He brought help to the sick land and made the 
cotton flower to bloom anew.' My name is General 
Bolingbroke," he added, with his genial and charming 
smile. "You will not forget it?" 


THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 


29 


I assured him that I should not, and that if it could 
be done, I’d try to have it written in our Bible with 
gilt clasps, at which he thanked me gravely as he 
shook my hand. 

^^An’ I think now I’d rather be president of the 
Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad, sir,” I 
concluded. 

Young man, I fear you’re with the wind,” he said, 
laughing, and added, *‘I’ve a nephew just about your 
age and at least a head shorter, what do you think of 
that?” 

'^Has he a kite?” I enquired eagerly. '^I have, an’ 
a top an’ ten checkers an’ a big balloon.” 

^^Have you, indeed? Well, my poor boy is not so 
well off, I regret to say. But don’t you think your 
prosperity is excessive considering the impoverished 
condition of the country?” 

The big words left me gasping, and fearing that I 
had been too boastful for politeness, I hastened to im 
form him that although the balloon was very big, it 
was also bu’sted, which made a difference.” 

^'Ah, it is, is it? Well, that does make a difference.” 

^^If your boy hasn’t any checkers I’ll give him half 
of mine,” I added with a gulp. 

With an elaborate flourish the General drew out a 
stiffly starched pocket handkerchief and blew his nose. 
'^That’s a handsome offer and I’ll repeat it without 
fail,” he said. 

Then he shook hands again and marched down the 
hill with his gold-headed stick tapping the ground. 

'^Now you’ll come and trot home, I reckon,” said 
President, when he had disappeared. 


30 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


But the spirit of revolt had lifted its head within 
me, for through a cleft in the future, I saw myself 
already as the president of the Great South Midland 
and Atlantic Railroad, with a jingling bunch of seals 
and a gold-headed stick. 

ain’t goin’ that way,” I said, ^'I’m goin’ home 
by the old Adams house where the little girl lives.” 

^^No, you ain’t either. I’ll tell ma on you.” 

don’t care. If you don’t take me home by the 
old Adams house, you’ll have to carry me every step 
of the way, an’ I’ll make myself heavy.” 

For a long minute President wrinkled his brows and 
thought hard in silence. Then an idea appeared to 
penetrate his slow mind, and he grasped me by the 
shoulder and shook me until I begged him to stop. 

^Gf I take you home that way will you promise to 
sham sick to-morrow, so I shan’t have to bring you 
out?” 

The price was high, but swallowing my disappoint- 
ment I met it squarely. 

“I will if you’ll lift me an’ let me look over the wall.” 

Hope you may die?” 

'^Hope I may die.” 

^'Wall, it ain’t anything to see but jest a house,” 
remarked President, as I held out my hand, ^^an’ 
girls ain’t worth the lookin’ at.” 

“She called me common,” I said, soberly. 

“Oh, shucks!” retorted President, with fine scorn, 
and we said no more. 

Clinging tightly to his hand I trudged the short 
blocks in silence. As I was little, and he was very 
large for his years, it was with difficulty that I kept 


THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 


31 


pace with him; but by taking two quick steps to his 
single slow one, I managed to cover the same distance 
in almost the same number of minutes. He was a 
tall, overgrown boy, very fat for his age, with a foolish, 
large-featured face which continued to look sheepishly 
amiable even when he got into a temper. 

'Hs it far. President I enquired at last between 
panting breaths. 

There ^tis” he answered, pointing with his free 
hand to a fine old mansion, with a broad and hos- 
pitable front, from which the curved iron railing bent 
in a bright bow to the pavement. It was the one 
great house on the hill, with its spreading wings, its 
stuccoed offices, its massive white columns at the 
rear, which presided solemnly over the terraced hill- 
side. A moment later he led me up to the high, 
spiked wall, and swung me from the ground to a 
secure perch on his shoulder. With my hands cling- 
ing to the iron nails that studded the wall, I looked 
over, and then caught my breath sharply at the 
thought that I was gazing upon an enchanted garden. 
Through the interlacing elm boughs the rosy light 
of the afterglow fell on the magnolias and laburnums, 
on the rose squares, and on the tall latticed arbours, 
where amid a glossy bower of foliage, a few pale 
microphylla roses bloomed out of season. Overhead 
the wind stirred, and one by one the small yellow 
leaves drifted, like wounded butterflies, down on the 
box hedges and the terraced walks. 

'^YouVe got to come down now — youhe too 
heavy, said President from below, breathing hard as 
he held me up. 


32 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

^'Jest a minute — give me a minute longer an^ Fll 
let you eat my blackberry jam at supper/' 

^^An' you've promised on yo' life to sham sick to- 
morrow?" 

‘^I'll sham sick an' I'll let you eat my jam, too, if 
you'll hold me a little longer." 

He lifted me still higher, and clutching desperately 
to the iron spikes, I hung there quivering, breathless, 
with a thumping heart. A glimmer of white flitted 
between the box rows on a lower terrace, and I saw 
that the princess of the enchanted garden was none 
other than my little girl of the evening before. She 
was playing quietly by herself in a bower of box, 
building small houses of moss and stones, which she 
erected with infinite patience. So engrossed was she 
in her play that she seemed perfectly oblivious of the 
fading light and of the birds and squirrels that ran 
past her to their homes in the latticed arbours. Higher 
and higher rose her houses of moss and atones, while 
she knelt there, patient and silent, in the terrace 
walk with the small, yellow leaves falling around her. 

That's a square deal now," said President, drop- 
ping me suddenly to earth. You'd better come 
along and trot home or you'll get a lamming." 

My enchanted garden had vanished, the spiked wall 
rose over my head, and before me, as I turned home- 
ward, spread all the familiar commonplaceness of 
Church Hm. 

^^How long will it be befo' I can climb up by my- 
self?" I asked. 

'^When you grow up. You're nothin' but a kid." 

^^An’ when'll I grow up if I keep on fast?" 


THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 


33 


in ten or fifteen years, I reckon/' 

‘^Shan't I be big enough to climb up befo' then?" 
^^Look here, you shut up! I'm tired answerin' 
questions," shouted my elder brother, and grasping 
his hand I trotted in a depressed silence back to our 
little home. 


CHAPTER III 


A PAIR OF RED SHOES 

I AWOKE the next morning a changed creature from 
the one who had fallen asleep in my trundle-bed. In 
a single hour I had awakened to the sharp sense of 
contrast, to the knowledge that all ways of life were 
not confined to the sordid circle in which I lived. 
Outside the poverty, the ugliness, the narrow streets, 
rose the spiked wall of the enchanted garden ; and when 
I shut my eyes tight, I could see still the half-bared 
elms arching against the sunset, and the old house 
beyond, with its stuccoed wings and its grave white 
columns, which looked down on the magnolias and 
laburnums just emerging from the twilight on the 
lower terrace. In the midst of this garden I saw always 
the little girl patiently building her houses of moss and 
stones, and it seemed to me that I could hardly live 
through the days until I grew strong enough to leap 
the barriers and play beside her in the bower of box. 

I asked, measuring myself against the red 
and white cloth on the table, ^^does it look to you as 
if I were growin^ up ?” 

The air was strong with the odour of frying bacon, 
and when my mother turned to answer me, she held 
a smoking skillet extended like a votive offering in 
her right hand. She was busy preparing breakfast for 
34 


A PAIR OF RED SHOES 


35 


Mrs. Cudlip, whose husband^s funeral we had attended 
the day before, and as usual when any charitable mis- 
sion was under way, her manner to my father and 
myself had taken a biting edge. 

^^Don^t talk foolishness, Benjy,^^ she replied, stopping 
to push back a loosened wiry lock of hair; ^4t^s time 
to think about growin’ up when you ain’t been but 
two years in breeches. Here, if you’re through break- 
fast, I want you to step with this plate of muffins to 
Mrs. Cudlip. Tell her I sent ’em an’ that I hope she 
is bearin’ up.” 

^^That you sent ’em an’ that you hope she is bearin’ 
up,” I repeated. 

^'That’s it now. Don’t forget what I told you 
befo’ you’re there. Thomas, have you buttered that 
batch of muffins?” 

My father handed me the plate, which was neatly 
covered with a red-bordered napkin. 

^^Did you tell me to lay a slice of middlin’ along side 
of ’em, Susan?” he humbly enquired. 

Without replying to him in words, my mother seized 
the plate from me, and lifting the napkin, removed the 
offending piece of bacon, which she replaced in the 
dish. 

‘^1 thought even you, Thomas, would have had mo’ 
feelin’ than to send middlin’ to a widow the day arter 
she has buried her husband — even a one-legged one ! 
Middlin’ indeed ! One egg an’ that soft boiled, will 
be as near a solid as she’ll touch for a week. Keep 
along, Benjy, an’ be sure to say just what I told 
you.” 

I did my errand quickly, and returning, asked eagerly 


36 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


if I might go out all by myself an^ play for an hour. 
^'1^11 stay close in the churchyard if you^ll lemme go/^ 
I entreated. 

''Run along then for a little while, but if you go out 
of the churchyard, you’ll get a whippin’,’^ replied my 
mother. 

With this threat ringing like a bell in my ears, I 
left the house and walked quickly along the narrow 
pavement to where, across the wide street, I discerned 
the white tower and belfry which had been added by 
a later century to the parish church of Saint John. 
Overhead there was a bright blue sky, and the October 
sunshine, filtering through the bronzed network of 
sycamore and poplar, steeped the flat tombstones and 
the crumbling brick vaults in a clear golden light. 
The church stood upon a moderate elevation above the 
street, and I entered it now by a short flight of steps, 
which led to a grassy walk that did not end at the 
closed door, but continued to the brow of the hill, 
where a few scattered slabs stood erect as sentinels 
over the river banks. For a moment I stood among 
them, watching the blue haze of the opposite shore; 
then turning away I rolled over on my back and lay 
at full length in the periwinkle that covered the ground. 
From beyond the church I could hear Uncle Methusalah, 
the negro caretaker, raking the dead leaves from the 
graves, and here and there among the dark boles of 
the trees there appeared presently thin bluish spirals 
of smoke. The old negro’s figure was still hidden, but 
as his rake stirred the smouldering piles, I could smell 
the sharp sweet odour of the burning leaves. Some- 
times a wren or a sparrow fluttered in and out of 


A PAIR OF RED SHOES 


37 


the periwinkle, and once a small green lizard glided 
like the shadow of a moving leaf over a tombstone. 
One sleeper among them I came to regard, as I grew 
somewhat older, almost with affection — not only be- 
cause he was young and a soldier, but because the tall 
marble slab implored me to ^Hread lightly upon his 
ashes.” Not once during the many hours when I 
played in the churchyard, did I forget myself and run 
over the sunken grave where he lay. 

The sound of the moving rake passed the church 
door and drew nearer, and the grey head of Uncle 
Methusalah appeared suddenly from behind an ivied 
tree trunk. Sitting up in the periwinkle, I watched 
him heap the coloured leaves around me into a brilliant 
pile, and then bending over hold a small flame close 
to the curling ends. The leaves, still moist from the 
rain, caught slowly, and smouldered in a scented cloud 
under the trees. 

'^Dis yer trash ain’ gwine ter bu^n twel hit^s smoked 
out,” he remarked in a querulous voice. 

Uncle Methusalah,” I asked, springing up, ^‘how 
old are you?” 

With a leisurely movement, he dragged his rake 
over the walk, and then bringing it to rest at his feet, 
leaned his clasped hands on the end of it, and looked 
at me over the burning leaves. He wore an old, 
tightly fitting army coat of Union blue, bearing tar- 
nished gold epaulets upon the shoulders, and around his 
throat a red bandanna handkerchief was wrapped 
closely to keep out the chills.” 

^^Gaud-a-moughty, honey!” he replied, so ole 
dat I^se done clean furgit ter count.” 


38 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


reckon you knew almost everybody that^s buried 
here, didn’t you?” 

^'Mos’ un um, chile, but I ain’t knowed near ez many 
ez my ole Marster. He done shuck hans w’en he wuz 
live wid um great en small. I’se done hyern ’im tell in 
my time how he shuck de han’ er ole Marse Henry right 
over dar in dat ar church.” 

^^Who was ole Marse Henry?” I enquired. 

‘H dunno, honey, caze he died afo’ my day, but he 
mus’ hev done a powerful heap er talkin’ while he wuz 
’live.” 

“Whom did he talk to. Uncle Methusalah?” 

“Ter hisself mostly, I reckon, caze you know folks 
ain’ got time al’ays ter be lisen’in’. But hit wuz en 
dish yer church dat he stood up en ax ’em please ter 
gin ’im liberty er ter gin ’im deaf.” 

“An’ which did they give him. Uncle?” 

“Wall, honey, ez fur ez I recollect de story dey gun 
’im bofe.” 

Bending over in his old blue army coat with the 
tarnished epaulets, he prodded the pile of leaves, where 
the scented smoke hung low in a cloud. The wind 
stirred softly in the grass, and a small flame ran along 
a bent twig of maple to a single scarlet leaf at the end. 

“Did they give ’em to him because he talked too 
much?” I asked. 

“I ain’ never hyern ner better reason, chile. Folks 
cyarn’ stan’ too much er de gab nohow, en’ dey sez 
dat he ’ouldn’t let up, but kep’ up sech a racket dat 
dey couldn’t git ner sleep. Den at las’ ole King George 
over dar in England sent de hull army clear across de 
water jes’ ter shet his mouf.” 


A PAIR OF RED SHOES 


39 


''An’ did he shut it?” 

"Dat’s all er hit dat I ever hyern tell, boy, but ef’n 
you don’ quit axin’ folks questions day in en day out, 
he’ll send all de way over yer agin’ jes’ ter shet 
yourn.” 

He went off, gathering the leaves into another pile at 
a little distance, and after a moment I followed him 
and stood with my back against a high brick vault. 

"Is there any way. Uncle Methusalah, that you can 
grow up befo’ yo’ time?” I asked. 

"Dar ’tis agin!” exclaimed the old negro, but he 
added kindly enough, "Dey tell me you kin do hit by 
stretchin’, chile, but I ain’ never seed hit wid my eyes, 
en w’at I ain’ seed wid my eyes I ain’ set much sto’ 
by.” 

His scepticism, however, honest as it was, did not 
prevent my seizing upon the faint hope he offered, 
and I had just begun to stretch myself violently against 
the vault, when a voice speaking at my back brought 
my heels suddenly to the safe earth again. 

"Boy,” said the voice, "do you want a dog?” 

Turning quickly I found myself face to face with the 
princess of the enchanted garden. She wore a fresh 
white coat and a furry white cap and a pair of red 
shoes that danced up and down. In her hand she 
carried a dirty twine string, the other end of which 
was tied about the neck of a miserable grey and white 
mongrel puppy. 

"Do you want a dog, boy?” she repeated, as proudly 
as if she offered a canine prize. 

The puppy was ugly, ill-bred, and dirty, but not an 
instant did I hesitate in the response I made. 


(0 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

^^Yes, I want a dog/^ I answered as gravely as she 
had spoken. 

She held out the string and my fist closed tightly 
over it. found him in the gutter,” she explained, 
^'and I gave him a plate of bread and milk because he 
is so young. Grandmama wouldn't let me keep him, 
as I have three others. I think it was very cruel of 
grandmama.” 

may keep him,” I responded, ''I ain't got any 
grandmama. I'll let him sleep in my bed.” 

^'You must give him a bath first,” she said, ^^and 
put him by the fire to dry. They wouldn't let me bring 
him into our house, but yours is such a little one that 
it will hardly matter.” 

At this my pride dropped low. ^'You live in the 
great big house with the high wall around the garden,” 
I returned wistfully. 

She nodded, drawing back a step or two with a quaint 
little air of dignity, and twisting a tassel on her coat 
in and out of her fingers, which were encased in white 
crocheted mittens. The only touch of colour about 
her was made by her small red shoes. 

haven't lived there long, and I remember where 
we came from — way — away from here, over yonder 
across the river.” She lifted her hand and pointed 
across the brick vault to the distant blue on the op- 
posite shore of the James. liked it over there 
because it was the country and we lived by ourselves, 
mamma and I. She taught me to knit and I knitted 
a whole shawl — as big as that — for grandmama. 
Then papa came and took us away, but now he has 
gone and left us again, and I am glad. I hope he will 


A PAIR OF RED SHOES 


41 


never come back because he is so very bad and I don’t 
like him. Mamma likes him, but I don’t.” 

^^May I play with you in your garden?” I asked 
when she had finished; ^^I’d like to play with you an’ 
I know ever so many nice ways to play that I made 
up out of my head.” 

She looked at me gravely and, I thought, regretfully. 

^^You can’t because you’re common,” she answered. 
''It’s a great pity. I don’t really mind it myself,” 
she added gently, seeing my downcast face, "I’d just 
every bit as lief play with you as not — a little bit — 
' — but grandmama wouldn’t — ” 

"But I don’t want to play with your grandmama,” 
I returned, on the point of tears. 

"Well, you might come sometimes — not very often,” 
she said at last, with a sympathetic touch on my sleeve, 
"an’ you must come to the side gate where grandmama 
won’t see you. I’ll let you in an’ mamma will not 
mind. But you mustn’t come often,” she concluded 
in a sterner tone, "only once or twice, so that there 
won’t be any danger of my growin’ like you. It would 
hurt grandmama dreadfully if I were ever to grow like 
you.” 

She paused a moment, and then began dancing up 
and down in her red shoes over the coloured leaves. 
"I’d like to play — play — play all the time!” she 
sang, whirling, a vivid little figure, around the crum^ 
bling vault. 

The next minute she caught up the puppy in her arms 
and hugged him passionately before she turned away. 

"His name is Samuel!” she called back over her 
shoulder as she ran out of the churchyard. 


42 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


When she had gone down the short flight of steps and 
into the wide street, I tucked Samuel under my arm, 
and lugged him, not without inward misgivings, into 
the kitchen, where my mother stood at the ironing- 
board, with one foot on the rocker of Jessyes cradle. 

I began in a faltering and yet stubborn voice, 
‘^IVe got a pup.’^ 

My mother’s foot left the rocker, and she turned 
squarely on me, with a smoking iron half poised above 
the garment she had just sprinkled on the board. 

‘^Whar did he come from?” she demanded, and 
moistened the iron with the thumb of her free hand. 

“I got him in the churchyard. His name is Samuel. ” 

For a moment she stared at the two of us in a stony 
silence. Then her face twitched as if with pain, the 
perplexed and anxious look appeared in her eyes, and 
her mouth relaxed. 

^^Wall, he’s ugly enough to be named Satan,” she 
said,'^but I reckon if you want to you may put him in 
a box in the back yard. Give him that cold sheep’s 
liver in the safe and then you come straight in and 
comb yo’ head. It looks for all the world like a tou- 
sled straw stack.” 

All the afternoon I sat in our little sitting-room, and 
faithful to my promise, shammed sickness, while 
Samuel lay in his box in the back yard and howled. 

'H’ll have that dog taken up the first thing in the 
mornin’, ” declared my mother furiously, as she cleared 
the supper table. 

reckon he’s lonely out thar, Susan,” urged my 
father, observing my trembling mouth, and eager, 
as usual, to put a pacific face on the moment. 


A PAIR OF RED SHOES 


43 


''Lonely, indeed! I^m lonely in here, but I don^t 
set up a howlin\ Thar^re mighty few folks, be they 
dogs or humans, that get all the company they want 
in life.’^ 

Once I crept out into the darkness, and hugging 
Samuel around his dirty stomach besought him, with 
tears, to endure his lot in silence ; but though he licked 
my face rapturously at the time, I had no sooner 
entered the house than his voice was lifted anew. 

"To think of po’ Mrs. Cudlip havin^ to mourn in all 
that noise, commented my mother, as I undressed and 
got into my trundle-bed. 

My pillow was quite moist before I went to sleep, 
while my mother^s loud threats against Samuel sounded 
from the other side of the room with each separate 
garment that she laid on the chair at the foot of her 
bed. In sheer desperation at last I pulled the cover 
over my ears in an effort to shut out her thin, querulous 
tones. At the instant I felt that I was wicked enough 
to wish that I had been born without any mother, and 
I asked myself how she would like it if I raised as great 
a fuss about baby Jessyes crying as she did about 
Samuels — who didnT make one-half the noise. 

Here the light went out, and I fell asleep, to awaken 
an hour or two later because of the candle flash in my 
eyes. In the centre of the room my mother was stand- 
ing in her grey dressing-gown, with a shawl over her 
head and the rapturously wriggling body of Samuel 
in her arms. Too amazed to utter an exclamation, 
I watched her silently while she made a bed with an 
old flannel petticoat before the waning fire. Then I 
saw her bend over and pat the head of the puppy with 


44 


THE EOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


her knotted hand before she crept noiselessly back to 
bed. 

At this day I see her figure as distinctly as I saw it 
that instant by the candle flame — her soiled grey 
wrapper clutched over her flat bosom; her sallow, 
sharp-featured face, with bluish hollows in the temples 
over which her sparse hair strayed in locks; her thin, 
stooping shoulders under the knitted shawl ; her sad, 
flint-coloured eyes, holding always that anxious look 
as if she were trying to remember some important 
thing which she had half forgotten. 

So she appeared to my startled gaze for a single 
minute. Then the Kght went out, she faded into the 
darkness, and I fell asleep. 


V 


CHAPTER IV 


IN WHICH I PLAY IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 

For the next two years, when my mother sent me 
on errands to McKenney^s grocery store, or for a pitcher 
of milk to old Mrs. Triffit^s, who kept a fascinating 
green parrot hanging under an arbour of musk cluster 
roses, it was my habit to run five or six blocks out of 
my way, and measure my growing height against the 
wall of the enchanted garden. On the worn bricks, 
unless they have crumbled away, there may still be 
seen the scratches from my penknife, by which I 
tried to persuade myself that each rapidly passing 
week marked a visible increase in my stature. Though 
I was a big boy for my age, the top of my straw-coloured 
hair reached barely halfway up the spiked wall ; and 
standing on my tiptoes my hands still came far below 
the grim iron teeth at the top. Yet I continued to 
measure myself, week by week, against the barrier, 
until at last the zigzag scratches from my knife began 
to cover the bricks. 

It was on a warm morning in spring during my 
ninth year, that, while I stood vigorously scraping the 
wall over my head, I heard a voice speaking in in- 
dignant tones at my back. 

^'You bad boy, what are you doing it said. 

Wheeling about, I stood again face to face with the 
45 


46 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


little girl of the red shoes and the dancing feet. Except 
for her shoes she was dressed all in white just as I had 
last seen her, and this time, I saw with disgust, she 
held a whining and sickly kitten clasped to her breast. 

know you are doing something you ought not to,’^ 
she repeated, ^^what is it?^^ 

Nothink, I responded, and stared at her red shoes 
like one possessed. 

^^Then why were you crawling so close along the wall 
to keep me from seeing you?^^ 
wa^nt.” 

^^You wa^nt what?’^ 

wa’nt crawlin^ along the wall; I was just tryin’ to 
look in,’^ I answered defiantly. 

An old negro ^ ^ mammy, in a snowy kerchief and 
apron, appeared suddenly around the corner near 
which we stood, and made a grab at the child ^s shoulder. 

''You jes let hm alont, honey, en he ain’ gwine hu^t 
you,” she said. 

"He won^t hurt me anyway,” replied the little girl, 
as if I were a suspicious strange dog, "I’m not afraid 
of him.” 

Then she made a step forward and held the whining 
grey kitten toward me. 

"Don’t you want a cat, boy ?” she asked, in a coaxing 
tone. 

My hands flew to my back, and the only reason I did 
not retreat before her determined advance was that 
I could hardly retreat into a brick wall. 

"I’ve just found it in the alley a minute ago,” she 
explained. "It’s very little. I’d like to keep it, only 
I’ve got six already.” 


IN WHICH I PLAY IN THE GARDEN 


47 


don^t like cats/^ I replied stubbornly, shaking 
my head. I saw Peter Finn’s dog kill one. He shook 
it by the neck till it was dead. I’m goin’ to train my 
dog to kill ’em, too.” 

Raising herself on the toes of her red shoes, she bent 
upon me a look so scorching that it might have burned 
a passage straight through me into the bricks. 

knew you were a horrid bad boy. You looked 
it!” she cried. 

At this I saw in my imagination the closed gate of 
the enchanted garden, and my budding sportsman’s 
proclivities withered in the white blaze of her wrath. 

don’t reckon I’ll train him to catch ’em by the 
back of thar necks,” I hastened to add. 

At this she turned toward me again, her whole vivid 
little face with its red mouth and arched black eyebrows 
inspired by a solemn purpose. 

'Hf you’ll promise never, never to kill a cat. I’ll 
let you come into the garden — for a minute,” she 
said. 

I hesitated for an instant, dazzled by the prospect 
and yet bargaining for better terms. ^^Will you let me 
walk under the arbours and down all the box-bordered 
paths?” 

She nodded. '^Just once,” she responded gravely. 

An’ may I play under the trees on the terrace where 
you built yo’ houses of moss and stones?” 

^^For a little while. But I can’t play with you, be- 
cause — because you don’t look clean.” 

My heart sank like lead to my waist line, and I looked 
down ashamed at my dirty hands. 

— I’d rather play with you,” I faltered. 


48 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^Fur de Lawd^s sake, honey, come in en let dat ar 
gutter limb alont,^' exclaimed the old negress, wagging 
her turbaned head. 

^^Well, 111 tell you what 111 do,^^ said her charge, 
after a deep moment; ''111 let you play with me for a 
little while if youll take the cat.^’ 

"But I ain’t got any use for it,’M stammered. 

"Take it home for a pet. Grandmama won’t let 
any more come on the place. She’s very cruel is 
grandmama, isn’t she, mammy?” 

"Go way, chile, dar ain’ nobody dat ’ould want all 
dem ar critters,” rejoined the old negress. 

"7 do,” said the little girl, and sighed soltly. 

"I’ll take it home with me,” I began desperately at 
last, "if you’ll let me play with you the whole evening.” 

"And take you into the house?” 

"An’ take me into the house,” I repeated doggedly. 

Her glance brushed me from head to foot, while I 
writhed under it. "I wonder why you don’t wash 
your face,” she observed in her cool, impersonal 
manner. 

I fell back a step and stared defiantly at the ground. 

"I ain’t got any water,” I answered, driven to bay. 

"I think if you’d wash it ever so hard and brush 
your hair flat on your head, you’d look very nice — 
for a boy,” she remarked. "I like your eyes because 
they’re blue, and I have a dog with blue eyes exactly 
like yours. Did you ever see a blue-eyed dog? He’s 
a collie. But your hair stands always on end and it’s 
the colour of straw.” 

"It growed that way,” I returned. "You can’t 
get it to be flat. Ma has tried.” 


IN WHICH I PLAY IN THE GARDEN 49 

bet I could/’ she rejoined, and caught at the old 
woman’s hand. ^^This is my mammy an’ her name is 
Euphronasia, an’ she’s got blue eyes an’ golden hair,” 
she cried, beginning to dance up and down in her red 
shoes. 

''Gawd erlive, lamb, I’se ez black ez a crow’s foot,” 
protested the old woman, at which the dance of the 
red shoes changed into a stamp of anger. 

"You aren’t ! — You aren’t ! You’ve got blue eyes 
an’ golden hair!” screamed the child. "I won’t let 
you say you haven’t, — I won’t let anybody say you 
haven’t !” 

It took a few minutes to pacify her, during which the 
old negress perjured herself to the extent of declaring 
on her word of honour that she had blue eyes and 
golden hair; and when the temper of her "lamb” 
was appeased, we turned the corner, approached the 
front of the house, and ascended the bright bow of 
steps. As we entered the wide hall, my heart thumped 
so violently that I hurriedly buttoned my coat lest 
the little girl should hear the sound and turn indig- 
nantly to accuse me of disturbing the peace. Then 
as the front door closed softly behind us, I stood blink- 
ing nervously in the dim green light which entered 
through the row of columns at the rear, beyond which I 
saw the curving stairway and the two miniature yew 
trees at its foot. There was a strange musty smell 
about the house — a smell that brings to me now, 
when I find it in old and unlighted buildings, the 
memory of the high ceiling, the shining fioor over which 
I moved so cautiously, and the long melancholy rows 
of moth-eaten stags’ heads upon the wall. 


50 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


A door at the far end was half open, and inside the 
room there were two ladies — one of them very little 
and old and shrivelled, and the other a pretty, brown- 
haired, pliant creature, whom I recognised instantly 
as our visitor of that stormy October evening more 
than two years ago. She was reading aloud when we 
entered, in a voice which sounded so soft and pious that 
I wondered if I ought to fold my hands and bow my 
head as I had been taught to do in the infant Sunday- 
school. 

^^Be careful not to mush your words, Sarah; the 
habit is growing upon you,^’ remarked the elder lady 
in a sharp, imperative tone. 

Shall I read it over, mother? I will try to speak 
more distinctly, returned the other submissively, and 
she began again a long paragraph which, I gathered 
vaguely, related to that outward humility which is the 
becoming and appropriate garment for a race of miser- 
able sinners. 

^^That is better,’’ commented the old lady, in an 
utterly ungrateful manner, ^ though you have never 
succeeded in properly rolling your r’s. There, that 
will do for to-day, we will continue the sermon upon 
Humility to-morrow.” 

She was so little and thin and wrinkled that it was 
a mystery to me, as I looked at her, how she managed 
to express so much authority through so small a 
medium. The chair in which she sat seemed almost 
to swallow her in its high arms of faded green leather ; 
and out of her wide, gathered skirt of brocade, her 
body rose very erect, like one of my mother’s black- 
headed bonnet pins out of her draped pincushion. 


IN WHICH I PLAY IN THE GARDEN 


51 


On her head there was a cap of lace trimmed gayly 
with purple ribbons, and beneath this festive adorn- 
ment, a fringe of false curls, still brown and lustrous, 
lent a ghastly coquetry to her mummied features. 
In the square of sunshine, between the gauze curtains at 
the window, a green parrot, in a wire cage, was scolding 
viciously while it pecked at a bit of sponge-cake from 
its mistresses hand. At the time I was too badly 
frightened to notice the wonderful space and richness 
of the room, with its carved rosewood bookcases, and 
its dim portraits of beruffled cavaliers and gravely 
smiling ladies. 

“ Sally, ee said the old lady, turning upon me a pierc^ 
ing glance which was like the flash of steel in the sun- 
hght, that a boy?’' 

Going over to the armchair, the little girl stood 
holding the kitten behind her, while she kissed her 
grandmother's cheek. 

'^What is it, Sally, dear?’' asked the younger 
woman, closing her book with a sigh. 

'^It's a boy, mamma," answered the child. 

At this the old lady stiffened on her velvet cushions, 
thought I had told you, Sally," she remarked icily, 
^Hhat there is nothing that I object to so much as a 
boy. Dogs and cats I have tolerated in silence, but 
since I have been in this house no boy has set foot in- 
side the doors." 

^‘1 am sure, dear mamma, that Sally did not mean 
to disobey you," murmured the younger woman, 
almost in tears. 

^^Yes, I did, mamma," answered the child, gravely, 
meant to disobey her. But he has such nice blue 


52 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


eyes” she went on eagerly, her lips glowing as she 
talked until they matched the bright red of her danc- 
ing shoes; '^an^ he^s goin^ to take a kitten home for 
a pet, an^ he says the reason he doesn’t wash his face 
is because he hasn’t any water.” 

“Is it possible,” enquired the old lady in the manner 
of her pecking parrot, “that he does not wash his 
face?” 

My pride could bear it no longer, and opening my 
mouth I spoke in a loud, high voice. 

“If you please, ma’am, I wash my face every day,” 
I said, “and all over every Saturday night.” 

She was still feeding the parrot with a bit of cake, 
and as I spoke, she turned toward me and waved one 
of her wiry little hands, which reminded me of a 
bird’s claw, under its ruffle of yellowed lace. 

“Bring him here, Sally, and let me see him,” she 
directed, as if I had been some newly entrapped savage 
beast. 

Catching me by the arm, Sally obediently led me to 
the armchair, where I stood awkward and trembling, 
with my hands clutching the flaps of my breeches’ 
pockets, and my eyes on the ground. 

For a long pause the old lady surveyed me critically 
with her merciless eyes. Then, ^ ^ Give him a piece of cake, 
Sally,” she remarked, when the examination was over. 

Sally’s mother had come up softly behind me while 
I writhed under the piercing gaze, and bending over 
she encircled my shoulders with her protecting arms. 

“He’s a dear little fellow, with such pretty blue 
eyes,” she said. 

As she spoke I looked up for the first time, and my 


IN WHICH I PLAY IN THE GARDEN 


53 


glance met my reflection in a long, gold-framed mirror 
hanging between the windows. The pretty blue 
eyes’’ I saw, but I saw also the straw-coloured hair, 
the broad nose sprinkled with freckles, and the sturdy 
legs disguised by the shapeless breeches, which my 
mother had cut out of a discarded dolman she had 
once worn to funerals. It was a figure which might 
have raised a laugh in the ill-disposed, but the women 
before me carried kind hearts in their bosoms, and 
even grandmama’s chilling scrutiny ended in nothing 
worse than a present of cake. 

^^May I play with him just a little while, grand- 
mama?” begged Sally, and when the old lady nodded 
permission, we joined hands and went through the 
open window out upon the sunny porch. 

On that spring morning the colours of the garden 
were all clear white and purple, for at the foot of the 
curving stairway, and on the upper terrace, bunches 
of lilacs bloomed high above the small spring flowers 
that bordered the walk. Beneath the fluted columns 
a single great snowball bush appeared to float like a 
cloud in the warm wind. As we went together down 
the winding path to the box maze which was sprinkled 
with tender green, a squirrel, darting out of one of 
the latticed arbours, stopped motionless in the walk 
and sat looking up at us with a pair of bright, 
suspicious eyes. 

reckon I could make him skeet, if I wanted to,” 
I remarked, embarrassed rather than malevolent. 

Her glance dwelt on me thoughtfully for a moment, 
while she stood there, kicking a pebble with the toe 
of a red shoe. 


54 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

“An’ I reckon I could make you skeet, if I wanted 
to/’ she replied with composure. 

Since the parade of mere masculinity had failed to 
impress her, I resorted to subtler measures, and kneel- 
ing among the small spring flowers which powdered 
the lower terrace, I began laboriously erecting a palace 
of moss and stones. 

“I make one every evening, but when the ghosts 
come out and walk up an’ down, they scatter them,” 
observed Sally, hanging attentively upon the work. 

“ Are there ghosts here really an’ have you seen 
’em ? ” I asked. 

Stretching out her hand, she swept it in a circle 
over the growing palace. “They are all around here 
— everywhere,” she answered. “I saw them one night 
when I was running away from my father. Mamma 
and I hid in that big box bush down there, an’ the 
ghosts came and walked all about us. Do you have 
to run away from your father, too?” 

For an instant I hesitated ; then my pride triumphed 
magnificently over my truthfulness. “I ran clear out 
to the hill an’ all the way down it,” I rejoined. 

“Is his face red and awful?” 

“As red as — as an apple.” 

“An apple ain’t awful.” 

“But he is. I wish you could see him.” 

“Would he kill you if he caught you?” 

“He — he’d eat me,” I panted. 

She sighed gravely. “I wonder if aU fathers are 
like that? ” she said. “Anyway, I don’t believe yours 
is as bad as mine.” 

“I’d like to know why he ain’t?” I protested in- 
dignantly* 


IN WHICH I PLAY IN THE GARDEN 


55 


Her lips quivered and went upward at the corners 
with a trick of expression which I found irresistible 
even then. 

'Ht^s a pity that it^s time for you to go home/^ she 
observed politely. 

reckon I can stay a little while longer/^ I returned. 

She shook her head, but I had already gone back 
to the unfinished palace, and as the work progressed, 
she forgot her hint of dismissal in watching the fairy 
towers. We were still absorbed in the building when 
her mother came down the curving stairway and into 
the maze of box. 

^Ht’s time for you to run home now, pretty blue 
eyes,^^ she said in her soft girlish way. Then catching 
our hands in hers, she turned with a merry laugh, and 
ran with us up the terraced walk. 

'Hs your mamma as beautiful as mine?^^ asked 
Sally, when we came to a breathless stop. 

^^She^s as beautiful as — as a wax doll,^^ I replied 
stoutly. 

'^That^s right, laughed the lady, stooping to kiss 
me. ^'You’re a dear boy. Tell your mother I said 
so.^^ 

She went slowly up the steps as she spoke, and 
when I looked back a moment later, I saw her smiling 
down on me between two great columns, with the 
snowball bush floating in the warm wind beneath her 
and the swallows flying low in the sunshine over her 
head. 

I had opened the side gate, when I felt a soft, furry 
touch on my hand, and Sally thrust the forgotten 
kitten into my arms. 


56 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

Be good to her,” she said pleadingly. ''Her name's 
Florabella." 

Resisting a dastardly impulse to forswear my bar- 
gain, I tucked the mewing kitten under my coat, 
where it clawed me unobserved by any jeering boy in 
the street. Passing Mrs. Cudlip's house on my way 
home, I noticed at once that the window stood in- 
vitingly open, and yielding with a quaking heart to 
temptation, I leaned inside the vacant room, and 
dropped Florabella in the centre of the old lady's 
easy chair. Then, fearful of capture, I darted along 
the pavement and flung myself breathlessly across our 
doorstep. 

A group of neighbours was gathered in the centre of 
our little sitting-room, and among them I recognised 
the flushed, perspiring face of Mrs. Cudlip herself. 
As I entered, the women fell slightly apart, and I saw 
that they regarded me with startled, compassionate 
glances. A queer, strong smell of drugs was in the 
air, and near the kitchen door my father was standing 
with a frightened and sheepish look on his face, as if 
he had been thrust suddenly into a prominence fiom 
which he shrank back abashed. 

"Where's ma?" I asked, and my voice sounded 
loud and unnatural in my own ears. 

One of the women — a large, motherly person, 
whom I remembered without recognising, crossed the 
room with a heavy step and took me into her arms. 
At this day I can feel the deep yielding expanse of her 
bosom, when pushing her from me, I looked round and 
repeated my question in a louder tone. 

"Where's ma?" 


IN WHICH I PLAY IN THE GARDEN 


57 


'^She was took of a sudden, dear,^^ replied the 
woman, still straining me to her. '^It came over her 
while she was standin’ at the stove, an’ befo’ anybody 
could reach her, she dropped right down an’ was 
gone.” 

She released me as she finished, and walking straight 
through the kitchen and the consoling neighbours, I 
opened the back door, and closing it after me, sat 
down on the single step. I can’t remember that I 
shed a tear or that I suffered, but I can still see as 
plainly as if it were yesterday, the clothes-line stretch- 
ing across the little yard and the fluttering, half-dried 
garments along it. There was a striped shirt of my 
father’s, a faded blue one of mine, a pink slip of baby 
Jessy’s, and a patched blue and white gingham apron 
I had seen only that morning tied at my mother’s 
waist. Between the high board fence, above the 
sunken bricks of the yard, they danced as gayly as if 
she who had hung them there was not lying dead in 
the house. Samuel, trotting from a sunny corner, 
crept close to my side, with his warm tongue licking 
my hand, and so I sat for an hour watching the flutter 
of the blue, the pink, and the striped shirts on the 
clothes-line. 

'^There ain’t nobody to iron ’em now,” I said sud- 
denly to Samuel, and then I wept. 


CHAPTER V 


IN WHICH I START IN LIFE 

With my mothers death all that was homelike and 
comfortable passed from our little house. For three 
days after the funeral the neglected clothes still hung 
on the line in the back yard, but on the fourth morn- 
ing a slatternly girl, with red hair and arms, came 
from the grocery store at the corner, and gathered 
them in. My little sister was put to nurse with Mrs. 
Cudlip next door, and when, at the end of the week. 
President went off to work somewhere in a mining 
town in West Virginia, my father and I were left 
alone, except for the spasmodic appearances of the 
red-haired slattern. Gradually the dust began to 
settle and thicken on the dried cat-tails in the china 
vases upon the mantel; the prize red geranium 
dropped its blossoms and withered upon the sill; the 
soaking dish-cloths lay in a sloppy pile on the kitchen 
floor; and the vegetable rinds were left carelessly to 
rot in the bucket beside the sink. The old neatness 
and order had departed before the garments my 
mother had washed were returned again to the tub, 
and day after day I saw my father shake his head 
dismally over the soggy bread and the underdone 
beef. Whether or not he ever realised that it was 
my mother’s hand that had kept him above the sur- 
58 


IN WHICH I START IN LIFE 


59 


face of life, I shall never know; but when that strong 
grasp was relaxed, he went hopelessly, irretrievably, 
and unresistingly under. In the beginning there was 
merely a general wildness and disorder in his appear- 
ance, — first one button, then two, then three dropped 
from his coat. After that his linen was changed less 
often, his hair allowed to spread more stiffly above his 
forehead, and the old ashes from his pipe dislodged 
less frequently from the creases in his striped shirt. 
At the end of three months I noticed a new fact about 
him — a penetrating odour of alcohol which belonged 
to the very air he breathed. His mind grew slower 
and seemed at last almost to stop; his blue eyes be- 
came heavier and glazed at times; and presently he 
fell into the habit of going out in the evenings, and 
not returning until I had cried myself to sleep, under 
my tattered quilt, with Samuel hugged close in my 
arms. Sometimes the red-haired girl would stop after 
her work for a few friendly words, proving that a 
slovenly exterior is by no means incompatible with a 
kindly heart; but as a usual thing I was left alone, 
after the boys had gone home from their play in 
the street, to amuse myself and Samuel as I could 
through the long evening hours. Sometimes I brought 
in an apple or a handful of chestnuts given me by one 
of the neighbours and roasted them before the rem- 
nants of fire in the stove. Once or twice I opened my 
mother^s closet and took down her clothes — her best 
bombazine dress, her black cashmere mantle trimmed 
with bugles, her long rustling crape veil, folded neatly 
beneath her bonnet in the tall bandbox — and half in 
grief, half in curiosity, I invaded those sacred pre- 


60 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


cincts where my hands had never dared penetrate 
while she was alive. My great loss, from which prob- 
ably in more cheerful surroundings I should have 
recovered in a few weeks, was renewed in me every 
evening by my loneliness and by the dumb sympathy 
of Samuel, who would stand wagging his tail for an 
hour at the sight of the cloak or the bonnet that she 
had worn. Like my father I grew more unkempt 
and ragged every day I lived. I ceased to wash my- 
self, because there was nobody to make me. My 
buttons dropped off one by one and nobody scolded. 
I dared no longer go near the gate of the enchanted 
garden, fearing that if the little girl were to catch 
sight of me, she would call me dirty,’’ and run away 
in disgust. Occasionally my father would clap me 
upon the shoulder at breakfast, enquire how I was 
getting along, and give me a rusty copper to spend. 
But for the greater part of the time, I believe, he was 
hardly aware of my existence; the vacant, flushed 
look was almost always in his face when we met, and 
he stayed out so late in the evening that it was not 
often his stumbling footsteps aroused me when he 
came upstairs to bed. 

So accustomed had I become to my lonely hours 
by the kitchen stove, with Samuel curled up at my feet, 
that when one night, about six months after my mother’s 
death, I heard the unexpected sound of my father’s 
tread on the pavement outside, I turned almost with 
a feeling of terror, and waited breathlessly for his un- 
steady hand on the door. It came after a minute, 
followed immediately by his entrance into the kitchen, 
and to my amazement I saw presently that he was 


IN WHICH I START IN LIFE 


61 


accompanied by a strange woman, whom I recognised 
at a glance as one of those examples of her sex that 
my mother had been used to classify sweepingly as 
^'females/' She was plump and jaunty, with yellow 
hair that hung in tight ringlets down to her neck, and 
pink cheeks that looked as if they might ^'come off^' 
if they were thoroughly scrubbed. There was about 
her a spring, a bounce, an animation that impressed 
me, in spite of my inherited moral sense, as decidedly 
elegant. 

My father^s eyes looked more vacant and his face 
fuller than ever. ^^Benjy,^' he began at once in a 
husky voice, while his companion released his arm in 
order to put her ringlets to rights, “IVe brought you 
a new mother.’’ 

At this the female’s hands fell from her hair, and she 
looked round in horror. What boy is that, Thomas ? ” 
she demanded, poised there in all her flashing bright- 
ness like sc figure of polished brass. 

^^That boy,” replied my father, as if at a loss exactly 
how to account for me, ^Hhat boy is Ben Starr — 
otherwise Benjy — otherwise — ” 

He would have gone on forever, I think, in his 
eagerness to explain me away, if the woman had not 
jerked him up with a peremptory question: ‘^How 
did he come here?” she enquired. 

Since nothing but the naked truth would avail him 
now, he uttered it at last in an eloquent monosyllable 
-^^Born.” 

'^But you told me there was not a chick or a child,” 
she exclaimed in a rage. 

For a moment he hesitated ; then opening his mouth 


62 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


slowly, he gave voice to the single witticism of his 
life. 

^^That was befo’ I married you, dearie,’^ he said. 

^^Well, how am I to know,^^ demanded the fem?ale, 
''Hhat you haven^t got a parcel of others hidden away ?” 

Tharps one, the littlest, put out to nurse next do^, 
an^ another, the biggest, gone to work in the West,^^ 
he returned in his amiable, childish manner. 

After my unfortunate introduction, however, the 
addition of a greater and a lesser appeared to impress 
her but little. She looked scornfully about the dis- 
orderly room, took off her big, florid bonnet, and began 
arranging her hair before the three-cornered mottled 
mirror on the wall. Then wheeling round in a temper, 
her eyes fell on Samuel, sitting dejectedly on his tail 
by my mother^s old blue and white gingham apron. 

^^What is that?^^ she fired straight into my father^s 
face. 

^^That,” he responded, offering his unnecessary in- 
formation as if it were a piece of flattery, ^^air the dawg, 
Sukey.^^ 

Whose dawg?” 

Goaded into defiance by this attack on my only 
friend, I spoke in a shrill voice from the corner into 
which I had retreated. ^^Mine,” I said. 

^^Wall, I’ll tell you what!” exclaimed the female, 
charging suddenly upon me, “if I’ve got to put up with 
a chance o’ kids, I don’t reckon I’ve got to be plagued 
with critters, too. Shoo, suh ! get out 1” 

Seizing my mother’s broom, she advanced resolutely 
to the attack, and an instant later, to my loud distress 
and to Samuel’s unspeakable horror, she had whisked 


IN WHICH I START IN LIFE 


63 


him across the kitchen and through the back door out 
into the yard. 

‘^Steady, Sukey, steady/^ remarked my father caress- 
ingly, much as he might have spoken to a favourite but 
unruly heifer. For an instant he looked a little crest- 
fallen, I saw with pleasure, but as soon as Samuel was 
outside and the door had closed, he resumed immediately 
his usual expression of foolish good humour. It was 
impossible, I think, for him to retain an idea in his mind 
after the object of it had been removed from his sight. 
While I was still drying my eyes on my frayed coat sleeve, 
I watched him with resentment begin a series of play- 
ful lunges at the neck of the female, which she received 
with a sulky and forbidding air. Stealing away the 
next minute, I softly opened the back door and joined 
the outcast Samuel, where he sat whining upon the step. 

The night was very dark, but beyond the looming 
chimneys a lonely star winked at me through the thick 
covering of clouds. I was a sturdy boy for my age, 
sound in body, and inwardly not given to sentiment or 
softness of any kind ; but as I sat there on the doorstep, 
I felt a lump rise in my throat at the thought that 
Samuel and I were two small outcast animals in the 
midst of a shivering world. I remembered that when 
my mother was alive I had never let her kiss me except 
when she paid me by a copper or a slice of bread laid 
thickly with blackberry jam ; and I told myself desper- 
ately that if she could only come back now, I would 
let her do it for nothing ! She might even whip me be- 
cause I^d torn my trousers on the back fence, and I 
thought I should hardly feel it. I recalled her last 
birthday, when I had gone down to the market with 


64 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


five cents of my own to buy her some green gage plums, 
of which she was very fond, and how on the way up the 
hill, being tempted, I had eaten them all myself. At 
the time I had stifled my remorse with the assurance 
that she would far rather I should have the plums than 
eat them herself, but this was cold comfort to me 
to-night while I regretted my selfishness. If I had only 
saved her half, as I had meant to do if the hill had not 
been quite so long and so steep. 

Samuel snuggled closer to me and we both shivered, 
for the night was fresh. The house had grown quiet 
inside ; my father and his new wife had evidently left 
the kitchen and gone upstairs. As I sat there I realised 
suddenly, with a pang, that I could never go inside the 
door again ; and rising to my feet, I struck a match and 
fumbled for a piece of chalk in my pocket. Then 
standing before the door I wrote in large letters across 
the panel : — 

^^Dear Pa. 

I have gone to work. 

Your Aff. son, 

Ben Starr.’^ 

The blue flame of the match flickered an instant 
along the words ; then it went out, and with Samuel 
at my heels, I crept through the back gate and down the 
alley to the next street, which led to the ragged brow 
of the hill. Ahead of me, as I turned off into Main 
Street, the scattered lights of the city showed like 
blurred patches upon the darkness. Gradually, while 
I went rapidly downhill, I saw the patches change into 
a nebulous cloud, and the cloud resolve itself presently 


IN WHICH I START IN LIFE 


65 


into straight rows of lamps. Few people were in the 
streets at that hour, and when I reached the dim build- 
ing of the Old Market, I found it cold and deserted, 
except for a stray cur or two that snarled at Samuel 
from a heap of trodden straw under a covered wagon. 
Despite the fact that I was for all immediate purposes 
as homeless as the snarling curs, I was not without the 
quickened pulses which attend any situation that a boy 
may turn to an adventure. A high heart for desperate 
circumstances has never failed me, and it bore me 
company that night when I came back again with 
aching feet to the Old Market, and lay down, holding 
Samuel tight, on a pile of straw. 

In a little while I awoke because Samuel was barking, 
and sitting up in the straw I saw a dim shape huddled 
beside me, which I made out, after a few startled 
blinks, to be the bent figure of a woman wrapped in a 
black shawl with fringed ends, which were pulled over 
her head and knotted under her chin. From the pene- 
trating odour I had learned to associate with my 
father, I judged that she had been lately drinking, and 
the tumbled state of my coat convinced me that she had 
been frustrated by Samuel in a base design to rifle my 
pockets. Yet she appeared so miserable as she sat there 
rocking from side to side and crying to herself, that I 
began all at once to feel very sorry. It seemed to hurt 
her to cry and yet I saw that the more it hurt her the 
more she cried. 

'^If I were you,’^ I suggested politely, ‘^I^d go home 
right away.” 

^^Home?” repeated the woman, with a hiccough, 
^'whaFs home?” 


s 


66 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


''The place you live in” 

"Lor, honey, I don’t live in no place. I jest walks.” 

"But what do you do when you get tired?” 

"I walks some mo’.” 

"An’ don’t you ever leave off?” 

"Only when it’s dark like this an’ thar’s no folks 
about.” 

"But what do folks say to you when they see you 
walkin’ ? ” 

"Say to me,” she threw back her head and broke 
into a drunken laugh, "why, they say to me: 'Step 
lively !’” 

She crawled closer, peering at me greedily under the 
pale' glimmer of the street lamp. 

"Why, you’re a darlin’ of a boy,” she said, "an’ 
such pretty blue eyes !” Then she rose to her feet and 
stood swaying unsteadily above me, while Samuel 
broke out into angry barks. "Shall I tell you a secret 
because of yo’ blue eyes?” she asked. "It’s this — 
whatever you do in this world, you step lively about it. 
I’ve done a heap of lookin’ an’ I’ve seen the ones who 
get on are the ones who step the liveliest. It ain’t no 
matter where you’re goin’, it ain’t no matter who’s befo’ 
you, if you want to get there first, step lively !” 

She went out, taking her awful secret with her, and 
turning over I fell asleep again on my pile of straw. " If 
ever I have a dollar I’ll give it to her so she may stop 
walkin’,” was my last conscious thought. 

My next awakening was a very different one, for the 
fight was streaming into the market, and a cheerful red 
face was shining down, like a rising sun, over a wheel- 
barrow of vegetables. 


IN WHICH I START IN LIFE 


67 


^^Don^t you think it^s about time all honest folk were 
out of bed, sonny enquired a voice. 

ain’t been here mo’n an hour,” I retorted, resent- 
ing the imputation of slothfulness with a spirit that 
was not unworthy of my mother. 

The open length of the market, I saw now, was be- 
ginning to present a busy, almost a festive, air. Stalls 
were already laden with fruit and vegetables, and farm- 
ers’ wagons covered with canvas, and driven by sun- 
burnt countrymen, had drawn up to the sidewalk. Ris- 
ing hurriedly to my feet, I began rubbing my eyes, for 
I had been dreaming of the fragrance of bacon in our 
little kitchen. 

^^Now I’d be up an’ off to home, if I were you, 
sonny,” observed the marketman, planting his wheel- 
barrow of vegetables on the brick floor, and beginning 
to wipe off the stall. ^^The sooner you take yo’ 
whippin’, the sooner you’ll set easy again.” 

There ain’t anybody to whip me,” I replied dole- 
fully, staring at the sign over his head, on which was 
painted in large letters — John Chitling. Fish, Oys- 
ters (in season). Vegetables. Fruits.” 

Stopping midway in his preparations, he turned on me 
his great beaming face, so like the rising sun that looked 
over his shoulder, while I watched his big jean apron swell 
with the panting breaths that drew from his stomach. 

Here’s a boy that says he ain’t got nobody to whip 
him !” he exclaimed to his neighbours in the surrounding 
stalls, — a poultryman, covered with feathers, a fish 
vender, bearing a string of mackerel in either hand, and 
a butcher, with his sleeves rolled up and a blood-stained 
apron about his waist. 


68 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

aF ays knew you were thick-headed, John Chitling,” 
remarked the fish dealer, with contempt, ^^but I never 
believed you were such a plum fool as not to know a 
tramp when you seed him.” 

''You ain't got but eleven of yo' own,” observed the 
butcher, with a snicker; "I reckon you'd better take 
him along to round out the full dozen.” 

"If I've got eleven there ain't one of 'em that wa'nt 
welcome,” responded John, his slow temper rising, 
"an' I reckon what the Lord sends he's willing to 
provide for.” 

"Oh, I reckon he is,” sneered the fish dealer, who 
appeared to be of an unpleasant disposition, "so long 
as you ain't over-particular about the quality of the 
provision.” 

"Well, he don't provide us with yo' fish, anyway,” 
retorted John; and I was watching excitedly for the 
coming blows when the butcher, who had been looking 
over me as reflectively as if I had been a spring lamb 
brought to slaughter, intervened with a peaceable 
suggestion that he should take me into his service. 

"I'm on the lookout for a bright boy in my busi- 
ness,” he observed. 

But the sight of blood on his rolled-up shirt sleeves 
produced in me that strange sickness I had inherited 
from my mother, who used to pay an old coloured 
market man to come up and wring the necks of her 
chickens ; and when the question was put to me if I'd like 
to be trained up for a butcher, I drew back and stood 
ready for instant flight in case they should attempt to 
decide my future by present force. 

"I'd rather work for you/' I said, looking straight at 


IN WHICH I START IN LIFE 


69 


John Chitling, for it occurred to me that if I were made 
to murder anything I^d rather it would be oysters. 

^'Ha ! ha ! he knows by the look of you, you^re needin^ 
one to make up the dozen,^^ exclaimed the butcher. 

^^Well, I declar he does seem to have taken a regular 
fancy,^^ acknowledged John, flattered by my decision. 

I don^t want any real hands now, sonny, but if you^d 
like to tote the marketing around with Solomon, I 
reckon I can let you have a square meal or so along with 
the others.’^ 

‘^Whatfll yo’ old woman say to it, John?^’ enquired 
the poultryman, with a loud guffaw, ^^when you send 
her a new one of yo’ own providing ?” 

John Chitling was busily arranging a pile of turnips 
with what he doubtless thought was an artistic eye for 
colour, and the facetiousness of the poultryman reacted 
harmlessly from his thick head. 

^^You needn^t worry about my wife, for she ain’t 
worryin’,’^ he rejoined, and the shine seemed to gather 
like moisture on his round red face under his shock 
of curling red hair. ^^She takes what comes an’ leaves 
the Lord to do the tendin’.” 

At this a shout went up which I did not under- 
stand, until I came to know later that an impression 
existed in the neighbourhood that the Chitlings had 
left entirely too much of the bringing up of their eleven 
children in the hands of Providence, who in turn had 
left them quite as complacently to the care of the 
gutter. 

don’t know but what too much trust in the 
Lord don’t work as badly as too little,” observed the 
fish dealer, while John went on placidly arranging his 


70 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


turnips and carrots. ^^What appears to me to be the 
best religion for a working-man is to hold a kind of 
middle strip between faith and downright disbelievin\ 
Let yo^ soul trust to the Lord^s lookin^ arter you, but 
never let yo^ hands get so much as an inklin’ that 
you’re a-trustin’. Yes, the safest way is to believe in 
the Lord on Sunday, an’ on Monday to go to work as 
if you wa’nt quite so sartain-sure.” 

A long finger of sunshine stretched from beyond 
the chimneys across the street, and pointed straight 
to the vegetables on John Chitling’s counter, until 
the onions glistened like silver balls, and the turnips 
and carrots sent out flashes of dull red and bright 
orange. 

^^I’ll let you overhaul a barrel of apples, sonny,” 
said the big man to me; ^^have you got a sharp eye for 
specks?” 

When I replied that I thought I had, he pointed to 
a barrel from which the top had been recently knocked. 

They’re to be sorted in piles, according to size,” he 
explained, and added, ^^For such is the contrariness of 
human nature that there are some folks as can’t see 
the apple for the speck, an’ others that would a long 
ways rather have the speck than the apple. I’ve one 
old gentleman for a customer who can’t enjoy eatin’ 
a pippin unless he can find one with a spot that won’t 
keep till to-morrow.” 

Kneeling down on the bricks, as he directed, I 
sorted the yellow apples until, growing presently faint 
from hunger, I began to gaze longingly, I suppose, at 
the string of fish hanging above my head. 

Maybe you’d like to run across an’ get a bite of 


IN WHICH I START IN LIFE 


71 


Bomethin^ befo^ you go on/’ suggested John, reading 
my glances. 

But I only shook my head, in spite of my gnaw- 
ing stomach, and went on doggedly with my sorting, 
impelled by an inherent determination to do with the 
best of me whatever I undertook to do at all. To the 
possession of this trait, I can see now in looking back, 
I have owed any success or achievement that has been 
mine — neither to brains nor to chance, but simply to 
that instinct to hold fast which was bred in my bone 
and structure. For the lack of this quality I have 
seen men with greater intellects, with far quicker wits 
than mine, go down in the struggle. Brilliancy I have 
not, nor any particular outward advantage, except 
that of size and muscle ; but when I was once in the 
race, I could never see to right or to left of me, only 
straight ahead to the goal. 

Overhead the sun had risen slowly higher, until the 
open spaces and the brick arches were flooded with 
light. If I had turned I should have seen the gay 
vegetable stalls blooming like garden beds down the 
dim length of the building. The voices of the market 
men floated toward me, now quarrelling, now laughing, 
now raised to shout at a careless negro or a prowling 
dog. I heard the sounds, and I smelt the strong smell 
of fish from the gleaming strings of perch and mackerel 
hanging across the way. But through it all I did not 
look up and I did not turn. My first piece of work 
was done with the high determination to do it well, 
and it has been my conviction from that morning that 
if I had slighted that barrel of apples, I should have 
failed inevitably in my career. 


CHAPTER VI 


CONCERNING CARROTS 

When I had finished my work, I rose from my 
knees and stood waiting for John Chitling^s directions. 

^'Run along to the next street, he said kindly, 
^^an’ you can tell my house, I reckon, by the number 
of children in the gutter. It^s the house with the 
most children befo' it. YouT find my wife cookin^, 
likely enough, in the kitchen, an’ all you’ve got to say 
is that I told you to tell her that you were hungry. 
She won’t ax you many questions, — that ain’t her 
way, — but she’ll jest set to work an’ feed you.” 

Reassured by this description, I whistled to Samuel, 
and crossed the narrow street, crowded with farmers’ 
wagons and empty wheelbarrows, to a row of dingy 
houses, with darkened basements, which began at the 
corner. By the number of ragged and unwashed 
children playing among the old tin cans in the gutter 
before the second doorway, I concluded that this was 
the home of John Chitling; and I was about to enter 
the close, dimly lighted passage, when a chorus of 
piercing screams from the small Chitlings outside, 
brought before me a large, slovenly woman, with slip- 
shod shoes, and a row of curl papers above her fore- 
head. When she reached the doorway, a small crowd 
had already gathered upon the pavement, and I be- 
held a half-naked urchin of a year or thereabouts, 
72 


CONCERNING CARROTS 


73 


dangled, head downwards, by the hand of a passing 
milkman. 

^^The baby^s gone an^ swallowed a cent, ma,’^ 
shrieked a half-dozen treble voices. 

'^Well, the Lord be praised that it wa’nt a quarter 
exclaimed Mrs. Chitling, with a cheerful piety, which 
impressed me hardly less than did the placid face 
with which she gazed upon the howling baby. There, 
there, it ainT near so bad as it might have been. 
DonT scream so. Tommy, a cent wonT choke him 
an’ a quarter might have.” 

^^But it was my cent, an’ I ain’t got a quarter!” 
roared Tommy, still unconsoled. 

'^Well, I’ll give you a quarter when my ship comes 
in,” responded his mother, at which the grief of the 
small financier began gradually to subside. 

''I had it right in my hand,” he sniffled, with his 
knuckles at his eyes, ^^an’ I jest put it into the baby’s 
mouth for keepin’.” 

By this time Mrs. Chitling had received the baby 
into her arms, and turning with an unruffled manner, 
she bore him into the house, where she stopped his 
mouth with a spoonful of blackberry jam. As she 
replaced the jar on the shelf she looked down, and for 
the first time became aware of my presence. 

'^He ain’t swallowed anything of yours, has he?” 
she enquired. ^^If he has you’ll have to put the 
complaint in writing because the neighbours are 
al’ays cornin’ to me for the things that are inside of 
him. I’ve never been able to shake anything out of 
him,” she added placidly, '^except one of Mrs. Has- 
kin’s bugle beads.” 


74 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


She delivered this with such perfect amiability that 
t was emboldened to say in my politest manner, 
you please, ma^am, Mr. Chitling told me I was to say 
that he said that I was hungry.’’ 

^^So the baby really ain’t took anything of yours?” 
she asked, relieved. ^^Well, I al’ays said he didn’t do 
half the damage they accused him of.” 

As I possessed nothing except the clothes in which 
I stood, and even that elastic urchin could hardly 
have accommodated these, I hastened to assure her 
that I was the bearer of no complaint. This ap- 
peared to win her entirely, and her large motherly face 
beamed upon me beneath the aureole of curl papers 
that radiated from her forehead. With a single move- 
ment she cleared a space on the disorderly kitchen 
table and slapped down a plate, with a piece missing, 
as if the baby had taken a bite out of it. 

^^To think of yo’ goin’ hungry at yo’ age an’ with- 
out a mother,” she said, opening a safe, and whipping 
several slices of bacon and a couple of eggs into a 
skillet. ^^Why, it would make me turn in my grave 
if I thought of one of my eleven wantin’ a bite of 
meat an’ not havin’ it.” 

As she switched about in her cheerful, slovenly way, 
I saw that her skirt had sagged at the back into what 
appeared to be an habitual gap, and from beneath it 
there showed a black calico petticoat of a dingy shade. 
But when a little later she sat me at the table, with 
Samuel’s breakfast on the floor beside me, I forgot 
her slatternly dress, her halo of curl papers, and her 
slipshod shoes, while I plied my -fork and my fingers 
under the motherly effulgence of her smile. Tied into 


CONCERNING CARROTS 


75 


a high chair in one corner, the baby sat bolt upright, 
with his thumb in his mouth, deriving apparently the 
greatest enjoyment from watching my appetite; and 
before I had finished, the ten cheerful children trooped 
in and gathered about me. ^^Give him another 
cake, ma!^' '^It^s my turn to help him next, ma!’^ 
^^1^11 pour out his coffee for him!^^ ^^Oh, ma, let me 
feed the dog,’^ rose in a jubilant chorus of shrieks. 

^^An^ he ain’t got any mother!” roared Tommy 
suddenly, and burst into tears. 

A sob lodged in my throat, but before the choking 
sound of it reached my ears, I felt myself enfolded in 
Mrs. Chitling’s embrace. As I looked up at her from 
this haven of refuge, it seemed to me that her curl 
papers were transfigured into a halo, and that her 
face shone with a heavenly beauty. 

I was given a bed in the attic, with the six younger 
Chitlings, and two days later, when my father tracked 
me to my hiding-place, I hid under the dark stair- 
case in the hall, and heard my protector deliver an 
eloquent invective on the subject of stepmothers. It 
was the one occasion in my long acquaintance with 
her when I saw her fairly roused out of her amiable 
inertia. Albemarle, the baby, had spilled bacon 
gravy over her dress that very morning, and I had 
heard her console him immediately with the assur- 
ance that there was ‘‘sl plenty more in the dish.” 
But possessed though she was with that peculiar in- 
sight which discerns in every misfortune a hidden 
blessing, in stepmothers, I found, and in stepmothers 
alone, she could discern nothing except sermons. 

^^To think of yo’ havin’ the brazen impudence to 


7G THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

come here arter the harm youVe done that po^ de- 
fenceless darling boy/^ she said, with a noble dignity 
which obscured somehow her slovenly figure and her 
dirty kitchen. Peering out from under the staircase, 
I could see that my father stood quite humbly before 
her, twirling his hatbrim nervously in his hands. 

ax you to believe, mum, what is the gospel 
truth, he replied, '^that I wa^nt meanin’ any harm to 
Benjy.” 

'^Not meanin^ any harm an^ you brought him a 
stepmother befo^ six months was up?^' she cried. 
‘‘Well, that ain^t my way of lookin’ at it, for IVe a 
mother’s heart and it takes a mother’s heart to stand 
the tricks of children,” she added, glancing down at 
the gravy stains on her bosom, ^'an’ it ain’t to be 
supposed — is it ? — that a stepmother should have a 
mother’s heart ? It ain’t natur — is it ? — I put it to 
you, that any man or woman should be born with a 
natchel taste for screamin’ an’ kickin’ an’ bein’ splashed 
with gravy, an’ the only thing that’s goin’ to cultivate 
them tastes in anybody is bringin’ ten or eleven of 
’em into the world. Lord, suh, I wa’nt born with 
the love of dirt an’ fussin’ any mo’ than you. It 
just comes along o’ motherhood like so much else. 
Now it stands to reason that you ain’t goin’ to enjoy 
the trouble a child makes unless that child is your 
own. Why, what did my baby do this mornin’ when 
he was learnin’ to walk, but catch holt of the dish an’ 
bring all the gravy down over me. Is thar any livin' 
soul, I ax you plainly, expected to see the cuteness 
In a thing like that except a mother? An’ what I 
say is that unless you can see the cuteness in a child 


CONCERNING CARROTS 


77 


instead of the badness, you ain^t got no business to 
bring ^em up — no, not even if you are the President 
himself ! — ” 

Just here I distinctly heard my father murmur in 
his humble voice something about having named an 
infant after the office and not the man. But so brief 
was the pause in Mrs. Chitling^s flow of remonstrance 
that his interjection was overwhelmed almost before 
it was uttered. Her very slovenliness, expressing as it 
did what she had given up rather than what she was, 
served in a measure to increase the solemn majesty 
with which she spoke ; and I gathered easily that my 
father’s small wits were vanquished by the first charge 
of her impassioned rhetoric. 

^‘1 thank you kindly, mum, it is all jest as you 
eay,” he replied, with the submissiveness of utter 
defeat, ^'but, you see, a man has got to give a thought 
to his washin’. It stands to reason — don’t it ?” — he 
concluded with a flash of direct inspiration, ^Hhat 
thar ain’t any way to get a woman to wash free for 
you except to marry her.” 

The logic of this appeared to impress even Mrs. 
Chitling, for she hesitated an instant before replying, 
and when she finally spoke, I thought her tone had 
lost something of its decision. 

^^An’ to make it worse you took a yaller-headed 
one an’ they’re the kind that gad,” she retorted feebly. 

My father shock his head, while a stubborn expres- 
sion settled on his sheepish features. 

'^Thar’s the cookin’ an’ the washin’ for her to think 
of,” he said. ain’t got any use for a woman that 
ain’t satisfied with the pleasures of home.” 


78 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^'The moral kind are, Mr. Starr, rejoined Mrs. 
Chitling, who had relapsed into a condition of placid 
indolence. ^^An^ as far as I am concerned since the 
first of my eleven came, IVe never wanted to put on 
my bonnet an^ set foot outside that do\ My kitchen 
is my kingdom,^^ she added, with dignity, '^an^ for 
my part, I ain^t got any use for those women who 
are everlastingly standin^ up for thar rights. What 
does a woman want with rights, I say, when she can 
enjoy all the virtues? What does she want to be 
standin^ up for anyway as long as she can set?^^ 

''Tharps no doubt that it is true, mum,’^ rejoined 
my father; and when he took his leave a few minutes 
afterwards, their relations appeared to have become 
extremely friendly, — not to say confidential. For an 
instant I trembled in my hiding-place, half expecting 
to be delivered into his hands. But he departed at 
last without discovering me, and I emerged from the 
darkness and stood before Mrs. Chitling, who had 
begun absent-mindedly to take down her curl papers. 

^^Most likely it ain^t his fault arter all,^^ she ob- 
served, for her judgment of him had already become 
a part of the general softness and pliability of her 
criticism of life; ^^he seems to be a nice sensible body 
with proper ideas about women. I like a man that 
knows a woman^s place, an’ I like a woman that knows 
it, too. Yo’ ma was a decent, sober, hard- wor kin’ per- 
son, wa’nt she, Benjy?” 

I replied that she was always in her kitchen and 
generally in her washtub, except when she went to 
funerals. 

‘^Well, I ain’t any moral objection to a funeral now 


CONCERNING CARROTS 


79 


an^ then, or some other sober kind of entertainment,^^ 
returned Mrs. Chitling, removing her curl papers in 
order to put on fresh ones, ^^but what I say is that 
the woman who wants pleasure outside her do^ ain^t 
the woman that she ought to be, that’s all. What 
can she have, I ax, any mo’ than she’s got? Ain’t 
she got everything already that the men don’t want? 
Ain’t sweetness an’ virtue, an’ patience an’ long suffer- 
ing an’ childbearin’ enough for her without her impu- 
dently standin’ up in the face of men an’ axin’ for 
mo’? Had she rather have a vote than the respect 
of men, an’ ain’t the respect of men enough to fill any 
honest female’s life?” 

In the beginning of her discourse, she had turned 
aside to slap a portion of cornmeal into a cracked 
yellow bowl, and after pouring a little water out of a 
broken dipper, she began whipping the dough with a 
long, irregular stroke that scattered a shower of fine 
drops at every revolution of her hand. Two of the 
children had got into a fight over a basin of apple 
parings, and she left her yellow bowl and separated 
them with a hand that bestowed a patch of wet meal 
on the hair of one and on the face of another. Not 
once did she hasten her preparations or relinquish the 
cheerful serenity which endowed her large, loose figure 
with a kind of majesty. 

The next day I started in as general assistant and 
market boy to John Chitling, and when I was not 
sorting over ripe vegetables or barrels of apples fresh 
from the orchard, I was toiling up the long hill, with a 
split basket, containing somebody’s marketing, on 
my arm. By degrees I learned the names of John 


80 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Chitling^s patronS; the separate ways to their houses, 
which always seemed divided by absurd distances, and 
the faces of the negro cooks who met me at the kitchen 
steps and relieved me of my burden. In the beginning 
I was accompanied on my rounds by a fat, smudge- 
nosed youth some six or eight years my senior, who 
smoked vile tobacco and enlivened the way by villain- 
ous abuses of John Chitling and the universe. For the 
first months, I fear, my outlook upon the customers I 
served was largely coloured by his narratives, but 
when at last he dropped off and went on a new job 
at the butcher^s, I arrived gradually at a more correct, 
and certainly a more charitable, point of view. By 
the end of the winter I had ceased to believe that 
John Chitling was a skinflint and his customers all 
vipers. 

In the bright soft weather of that spring the city 
opened into a bloom of faint pink and white, which comes 
back to me like a delicate fragrance. The old gardens 
are gone now, with their honeysuckle arbours, their 
cleanly swept walks, bordered by rows of miniature box, 
their deep, odorous bowers of microphylla and musk 
cluster roses. Yet I can look back still through the 
gauzy shadows of elms and sycamores ; I can hear still 
the rich, singing call of the negro drivers, as the covered 
wagons from country farms passed sleepily through the 
hot sunshine which fell between the arching trees ; and 
I can smell again the air steeped in a fragrance that is 
less that of flowers than of the subtle atmosphere of an 
unforgettable youth. To-day the city is the same city 
no longer, nor is the man who writes this the market 
boy who toiled up the long hill in the blossoming spring, 


CONCERNING CARROTS 


81 


with the seeds of the future quickening in brain and 
heart. 

The morning that I remember best is the one on which 
I carried the day^s marketing to an old grey house, with 
beds of wallflowers growing close against the stuccoed 
bricks, and a shrub that flowered bright yellow glanc- 
ing through the tall gate at the rear. I had passed the 
wallflowers as was my custom, and entering the gate 
at the back, had delivered my basket at the kitchen 
door, when, as I turned to retrace my steps, I was 
detained by the scolding voice of the pink-turbaned 
negro cook. 

^^Hil if you ain^ clean furgit de carrots she cried. 

Now the carrots had been placed in the basket, as I 
had seen with my own eyes, by the hands of John Chit- 
ling himself, and I had been cautioned at the time not 
to drop them out in my ascent of the steep hill. There 
was a lady in the grey house, he had informed me, who 
was supposed to subsist upon carrots alone, and who 
was in consequence extremely particular as to their size 
and flavour. 

^^Are you sure they ainT among the vegetables 
I asked. saw them put in myself.^' 

^^Huh! en you seed ^em fall out, too, I lay!’^ 
rejoined the negress, protruding her thick red lips as 
she turned the basket upside down with an indignant 
blow. 

''If they're lost. I'll go back and bring others," I 
said, thinking disconsolately of the hill. 

"En you 'ould be back hyer agin in time fur sup- 
per," retorted the outraged divinity. "Wat you reckon 
Miss Mitty wants wid car'ots fur 'er supper? Dey is 


82 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


hern, dey ain’ mine, but ef^n dey ^us mine I^d lamn you 
twel you couldn^t see ter set. Hit^s bad enough ter 
hev ter live erlong in de same worl ^ wid de slue-footed 
po^ white trash widout hevin^ dem a-snatchin^ de 
carrots outer yo^ ve^y mouf.^^ 

My temper, never of the mildest, was stung quickly to 
a retort, and I was about to order her to hold her tongue 
and return me my basket, when the door into the house 
opened and shut, and the little girl of the enchanted 
garden appeared in the flesh before me. 

want the plum cake you promised me. Aunt 
Mirabella,^^ she cried ; ^'and oh ! I hope youVe stuffed 
it full of plums Then her glance fell upon me and 
I saw her thick black eyebrows arch merrily over her 
sparkling grey eyes. It^s my boy ! My dear common 
boy she exclaimed, with a rush toward me. For thr 
first time I noticed then that she was dressed in 
mourning, and that her black clothes intensified the dark 
brightness of her look. ^^Oh, I am glad to see you,^' 
she added, seizing my hand. 

I gazed up at her, wounded rather than pleased 
shanT be a common boy always,’^ I answered. 

^^Do you mind my calling you one? If you do, I 
wonT,’^ she said, and without waiting a minute, 
‘^What are you doing here? I thought you lived over 
on Church Hill.’^ 

donT now. Ma died and I ran away.^' 

^'My mother died, too,’^ she returned softly, ‘^and 
then grandmama.^’ 

For a moment there was a pause. Then I said with a 
kind of stubborn pride, I ran away.^^ 

The sadness passed from her and she turned on me 


CONCERNINa CARROTS 


83 


in a glow of animation. ^^Oh, I should just love dearly 
to run away she exclaimed. 

^^You couldn^t. You^re a girl.’^ 

^‘1 could, too, if I chose. 

'' Then why donT you choose? 

Because of Aunt Mitty and Aunt Matoaca. They 
havenT anybody but me.’^ 

left my father,’’ I replied proudly, ^^and I didn’t 
care one single bit. That’s the trouble with girls. 
They’re always caring.” 

^^Well, I’m not caring for you,” she retorted with 
crushing effect, shaking back the soft cloud of hair on 
her shoulders. 

^^Boys don’t care,” I rejoined with indifference, 
taking up my market basket. 

She detained me with a glance. '^There’s one thing 
they care about — dreadfully,” she said. 

''No, there ain’t.” 

Without replying in words she went over to the stove, 
and standing on tiptoe, gingerly removed a hot plum 
cake, small and round and shaped like a muffin, from 
the smoking oven. 

"I reckon they care about plum cake,” she remarked 
tauntingly, and as she held it toward me it smelt 
divinely. 

But my pride was in arms, for I remembered the cup 
of milk she had refused disdainfully more than three 
years ago in our little kitchen. 

^'No, they don’t,” I replied with a stoicism that might 
have added lustre to a nobler cause. 

In my heart I was hoping that she would drop the 
cake into my basket in spite of my protest, not only 


84 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


sparing my pride by an act of magnanimity, but allowing 
me at the same time the felicity of munching the plums 
on my way back to the Old Market. But the next 
moment, to my surprise and indignation, she took a gener- 
ous bite of the very dainty she had offered me, making, 
while she ate it, provoking faces of a rapturous enjoy- 
ment. 

I was lingering in the doorway with a scornful yet 
fascinated gaze on the diminishing cake, when the pink- 
turbaned cook, who had gone out to empty a basin of 
pea shells, entered and resumed her querulous abuse. 

'^De bes^ thing you kin do is ter clear out,^^ she said, 
'^you en yo^ car’ots. He ain^ fit^n fur you ter tu^n yo^ 
eyes on, honey,’^ she added to the child, ‘^en I don^ 
reckon yo^ ma would let yo^ wipe yo^ foot on hm ef n 
she ^uz alive. Yes^m, Miss Mitty, I^se a-comin^ 

Her voice rose high in response to a call from the 
house, but before she could leave the kitchen, the door 
behind the little girl opened, and a lady said reprov- 
ingly : — 

Sally, Sally, haven^t I told you to keep away from 
the kitchen?'^ 

^^Oh, Aunt Mitty, I had to come for my plum cake,” 
pleaded Sally, ^^and Aunt Matoaca said that I might.” 

An elderly lady, all soft black and old yellow lace, 
stood in the doorway. Then before she could answer 
a second one appeared at her side, and I had a vision of 
two slender maidenly figures, who reminded me, meek 
heads, drooping faces, and creamy lace caps, of the wall- 
flowers in the border outside blooming in a patch of 
sunshine close against the old grey house. At first there 
seemed to me to be no visible difference between them, 


CONCERNING CARROTS 


85 


but after a minute, I saw that the second one was gentler 
and smaller, with a softer smile and a more shrinking 
manner. 

'^It was my fault. Sister Mitty,^' she said, told 
Sally that she might come after her plum cake.^' 

Her voice was so low and mild that I was amazed the 
next instant to hear the taller lady respond. 

''Of course. Sister Matoaca, you were at liberty to do 
as you thought right, but I cannot conceal from you that 
I consider a person of your dangerous views an unsafe 
guardian for a young girl.'' 

She advanced a step into the kitchen, and as Miss 
Matoaca followed her she replied in an abashed and 
faltering voice : — 

"I am sorry. Sister Mitty, that we do not agree in 
our principles. There is nothing else that I will not 
sacrifice to you, but when a question of principle is 
concerned, however painful it is to me, I must be firm." 

At this, while I was wondering what terrible thing a 
principle could possibly turn out to be, I saw Miss Mitty 
draw herself up until she fairly towered like a marble 
column about the shrinking figure in front of her. 

"But such principles. Sister Matoaca !" she excaimed. 

A flush rose to the clear brown surface of the little 
lady's cheek, and more than ever, I thought, she 
resembled one of the wallflowers in the border outside. 
Her head, with its shiny parting of soft chestnut hair, 
was lifted with a mild, yet spirited gesture, and I saw 
the delicate lace at her throat and wrists tremble as if 
a faint wind had passed. 

"Remember, sister, that my ancestors as well as 
yours fought against oppression in three wars," she 


86 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


said in her sweet low voice that had, to my ears, the 
sound of a silver bell, ^^and it has become my painful 
duty, after long deliberation with my conscience, to 
inform you — I consider that taxation without repre- 
sentation is tyranny/^ 

Sally, go into the house,’’ commanded Miss Mitty, 
cannot permit you to hear such dangerous senti- 
ments expressed.” 

^'Let me go. Sister Mitty,” said Miss Matoaca, for the 
flash of spirit had left her as wan and drooping as a 
blighted flower ; I will go myself,” and turning meekly, 
she left the kitchen, while Sally took a second cake from 
the oven and came over to where I stood. 

^^I’ll just put this into your basket anyway,” she 
remarked, ^^even if you don’t care about it.” 

^Tome, child,” urged Miss Mitty, waiting, ''but 
give the boy his cake first.” 

The cake was put into my hands, not into the basket, 
and I took a large, delicious mouthful of it while I 
went by the meek wallflowers standing in a row, lik^< 
prim maiden ladies, against the old grey house. 


CHAPTER VII 


IN WHICH I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LADDER 

As I passed through the gate and turned down 
Franklin Street under a great sycamore that grew 
midway of the pavement, I vowed passionately in my 
heart that I would remain ^^a common boy’^ no longer. 
With the plum cake in my hand, and the delicious 
taste of it in my mouth, I placed my basket on the 
ground and leaned against the silvery body of the 
tree, with my eyes on Samuel, sitting very erect, with 
his paws held up, his tail wagging, and his expectant 
gaze on my face. 

^^What can we do about it, Samuel? How can we 
begin? Are we common to the bone, I wonder? and 
how are we going to change ? 

But Samueks thoughts were on the last bit of cake, 
and when I gave it to him, he stopped begging like a 
wise dog that has what he wanted, and lay down on the 
sidewalk with his eyes closed and his nose between 
his outstretched paws. 

A gentle wind stirred overhead, and I smelt the sharp 
sweet fragrance of the sycamore, which cast a delicate 
lacework of shadows on the crooked brick pavement. 
Not only the great sycamore and myself and Samuel, 
but the whole blossoming city appeared to me in a 
dream; and as I glanced down the quiet street, over 
87 


88 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


which the large, slow shadows moved to and fro, I saw 
through a mist the blurred grey-green foliage in the 
Capitol Square. In the ground the seeds of the new 
South, which was in truth but the resurrected spirit 
of the old, still germinated in darkness. But the air, 
though I did not know it, was already full of the promise 
of the industrial awakening, the constructive impulse, 
the recovered energy, that was yet to be, and in which 
I, leaning there a barefooted market boy, was to have 
my part. 

An aged negress, in a red bandanna turban, with a 
pipe in her mouth, stopped to rest in the shadow of the 
sycamore, placing her basket, full of onions and toma- 
toes, on the pavement beside my empty one. 

‘^Do you know who lives in that grey house. 
Mammy I asked. 

Twisting the stem of her pipe to the corner of her 
mouth, she sat nodding at me, while the wind fluttered 
the wisps of grizzled hair escaping from beneath her 
red and yellow head-dress. 

^^Go Vay, chile, whar you done come f’om?’^ she 
demanded suspiciously. Ain’t you ever hyern er 
Marse Bland? He riz me.” 

I shook my head, sufficiently humbled by my ple- 
beian ignorance. 

^^Are the two old ladies his daughters?” 

^'Wat you call Miss Mittyen Miss Matoaca ole fur? 
Dey ain’ ole,” she responded indignantly. use’n 
ter b’long ter Marse Bland befo’ de war, en I kin rec- 
ollect de day dat eVy one er dem wuz born. Dey’s 
all daid now cep’n Miss Mitty en Miss Matoaca, en 
Marse Bland he’s daid, too.” 


I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LADDER 89 

^^Then who is the little girl? Where did she come 
from?^' 

There was a dandelion blooming in a tuft of grass 
between the loosened bricks of the pavement, and I 
imprisoned it in my bare toes while I waited impa- 
tiently for her answer. 

^^Dat^s Miss Sary’s chile. She ran away wid Marse 
Harry Mickleborough, in Marse Bland’s lifetime, en 
he ’ouldn’t lay eyes on her f’om dat day ter his deaf. 
Miss Mitty en Miss Matoaca dey ain’ ole, but Miss 
Sary she want nuttin’ mo’n a chile w’en she went off.” 

But why did her father never see her again?” 

‘^Dat was ’long er Marse Mickleborough, boy, but 
I ain’ gwine inter de ens en de outs er dat. Hit mought 
er been becaze er Marse Mickleborough’s fiddle, but 
I ain’ sayin’ dat hit wuz er dat hit wuzn’t. Bar’s 
some folks dat cyarn’ stan’ de squeak er a fiddle, en 
he sutney did fiddle a mont’ous lot. He usen ter beat 
Miss Sary, too, I hyern tell, jes es you mought hev 
prognosticate er a fiddlin’ man; but she ain’ never 
come home twel atter her pa wuz daid en buried over 
yonder in Hollywood. Den w’en de will wuz read 
Marse Bland had lef ev’y las’ cent clean away f’om her 
en de chile. Atter Miss Mitty en Miss Matoaca die 
de hull pa’cel er hit’s er gwine ter some no ’count hos- 
pital whar dey take live folks ter pieces en den put ’em 
tergedder agin.” 

You mean the little girl won’t get a blessed cent?” 
I asked, and my toes pinched the head of the dande- 
lion until it dropped from its stem. 

Ain’t I done tole you how ’tis?” demanded the 
negress in exasperation, rising from her seat on the 


^0 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

curbing, wat mek you keep on axin^ over wat I 
done tole you?^' 

She went off muttering to herself, while she clenched 
the stem of her corncob pipe between her toothless 
gums; and picking up my basket and whistling to 
Samuel, I walked slowly downhill, with the problem 
of the future working excitedly in my brain. 

market boy is obliged to be a common boy,^^ 
I thought, and immediately: '^Then I will not be a 
market boy any longer. 

So hopeless the next instant did my present con- 
dition of abject ignorance appear to me, that I found 
myself regretting that I had not asked advice of the 
aged negress who had rested beside me in the shadow 
of the sycamore. I wondered if she would consider 
the selling of newspapers a less degrading employment 
than the hawking of vegetables, and with the thought, 
I saw stretching before me, in all its alluring brightness, 
that royal road of success which leads from the castle of 
dreams. One instant I resolved to start life as a fruit 
vender on the train, and the next I was wildly imagin- 
ing myself the president of the Great South Midland 
and Atlantic Railroad, with a jingling bunch of seals 
and a gold-headed stick. When at last I reached the 
Old Market I found that the gayety had departed from 
it, and it appeared slovenly and disgusting to my 
awakened eyes. The fruit and vegetables, so fresh 
and inviting in the early morning, were now stale and 
wilted ; a swarm of flies hung like a black cloud around 
the joint suspended before the stall of Perkins, the 
butcher; and as I passed the stand of the fish dealer, 
the odour of decaying fish entered my nostrils. Was 


I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LAUDER 91 


it the same place I had left only a few hours before, 
or what sudden change in myself had revealed to me 
the grim ugliness of its aspect? '^He^s a common 
boy,^^ the little girl had said of me almost four years 
ago, and I felt now, as I had felt then, the sting of a 
whip on my bare flesh at her words. Come what might 
I would cease to be common boy” from that hour. 

In the afternoon I bought an armful of ^^The Evening 
Planet,” and wandered up Franklin Street on a venture, 
crying the papers aloud with an agreeable assurance 
that I had deserted huckstering to enter journalism. 
As I passed the garden of the old grey house my voice 
rang out shrilly, yet with a quavering note in it, 
'^Eve-ning Pla-net!” and almost before the sound 
had passed under the sycamores, the gate in the wall 
opened cautiously and one of the ladies called to me 
timidly with her face pressed to the crack. The two 
sisters were so much alike that it was a minute before 
I discovered the one who spoke to be Miss Matoaca. 

^^Will you please let me have a paper,” she said 
apologetically, ^^we do not take it. There is no gentle- 
man in the house. I — I am interested in the mar- 
riages and deaths,” she added, in a louder tone as if 
some one were standing close to her beyond the garden 
gate. 

As I gave her the paper she stretched out her hand, 
under its yellowed lace ruffle, and dropped the money 
into my palm. 

shall be obliged to you if you will call out every 
day when you pass here,” she remarked, after a minute; 
^‘1 am almost always in the garden at this hour.” 

I promised her that I should certainly remember, 


92 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


and she was about to draw inside the garden with a 
gentle, flower-like motion of her head, when a gentle- 
man, with a gold-headed walking-stick in his hand, 
lunged suddenly round the smaller sycamore at the 
corner, and entrapped her between the wall and the 
gate before she had time to retreat. 

^'So IVe caught you at it, eh. Miss Matoaca!” he 
exclaimed, shaking a pudgy forefinger into her face, 
with an air of playful gallantry. ''Buying news- 
papers 

Poor Miss Matoaca, fluttering like a leaf before this 
onslaught of chivalry, could only drop her bright brown 
eyes to the ground and flush a delicate pink, which 
the General must have admired. 

"They — they are excellent to keep away moths 
she stammered. 

The sly and merry look, which I discovered after- 
wards to be his invincible weapon with the ladies, 
appeared instantly in his watery grey eyes. 

"And you donT even glance at the political head- 
lines? Ah, confess. Miss Matoaca.” 

He was very stout, very red in the face, very round in 
the stomach, very roguish in the eyes, yet I realised 
even then that some twenty years before — when the 
results of his sportive masculinity had not become 
visible in his appearance — he must have been hand- 
some enough to have melted even Miss Matoaca's 
heart. Like a faint lingering beam of autumn sun- 
shine, this comeliness, this blithe and unforgettable 
charm of youth, still hovered about his heavy and 
plethoric figure. Across his expansive front there 
stretched a massive gold chain of a unique pattern, 


I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LADDER 93 


and from this chain, I saw now, there hung a jingling 
and fascinating bunch of seals. The gentleman I might 
have forgotten, but that bunch of seals had occupied 
for three long years a particular corner of my memory ; 
and in the instant that my eyes fell upon it, I saw 
again the ragged hill covered with pokeberry, yarrow, 
and stunted sumach, the anchored vessel outlined 
against the rosy sunset, and the panting stranger, who 
had stopped to rest with his hand on my shoulder. I 
remembered suddenly that I wanted to become the 
president of the Great South Midland and Atlantic 
Railroad. 

He stood there now in all his redundant flesh before 
me, his large mottled cheeks inflated with laughter, 
his full red lips pursed into a gay and mocking expres- 
sion. To me he personified success, happiness, achieve- 
ment — the other shining extreme from my own ob- 
scurity and commonness; but the effect upon poor 
little Miss Matoaca was quite the opposite, I judged 
the next minute, from the one that he had intended. 
I watched her fragile shoulders straighten and a glow 
rather than a flash of spirit pass into her uplifted face. 

^^With your record. General Bolingbroke,^^ she said, 
in a quavering yet courageous voice, '^you may re- 
fuse your approval, but not your respect, to a matter 
of principle.^' 

The roguish twinkle, which was still so charming, 
appeared like the lost spirit of youth in the Generahs 
eyes. 

'^Ah, Miss Matoaca,’^ he rejoined, in his most gallant 
manner, '^principles do not apply to ladies 

At this Miss Matoaca drew herself up almost haugh- 


94 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


tily, and I felt as I looked at her that only her sex had 
kept her from becoming a general herself. 

^^It is very painful to me to disagree with the gentle- 
men I know/^ she said, ^^but when it is a matter of 
conviction I feel that even the respect of gentlemen 
should be sacrificed. My sister Mitty considers me 
quite indelicate, but I cannot conceal from you that — 
her voice broke and dropped, but rose again instantly 
with a clear, silvery sound, consider that taxation 
without representation is tyranny. 

A virgin martyr refusing to sacrifice a dove to Venus 
might have uttered her costly heresy in such a voice 
and with such a look; but the General met it suavely 
with a flourish of his wide-brimmed hat and a blan- 
dishing smile. He was one of those gentlemen of the 
old school, I came to know later, to whom it was an 
inherent impossibility to appear without affectation 
in the presence of a member of the opposite sex. A 
high liver, and a good fellow every inch of him, he could 
be natural, racy, charming, and without vanity, when 
in the midst of men; but let so much as the rustle of 
a petticoat sound on the pavement, and he would begin 
to strut and plume himself as instinctively as the cock 
in the barnyard. 

^^But what would you do with a vote, my dear 
Miss Matoaca,^^ he protested airily. '^Put it into a 
pie?^^ 

His witticism, which he hardly seemed aware of 
until it was uttered, afforded him the next instant an 
enjoyment so hilarious that I saw his waist shake like 
a bowl of jelly between the flapping folds of his alpaca 
coat. While he stood there with his large white cravat 


I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LAUDER 95 

twisted awry by the swelling of his crimson neck, and 
his legs, in a pair of duck trousers, planted very far 
apart on the sidewalk, he presented the aspect of a 
man who felt himself to be a graduate in the experi- 
mental science of what he probably would have called 
'Hhe sex/^ When I heard him frequently alluded to 
afterwards as '^a gay old bird,^^ I wondered that I had 
not fitted the phrase to him as he fixed his swimming^ 
parrot-like eyes on the fiushed face of Miss Matoaca. 

^Mf that^s all the use you^d make of it, I think we 
might safely trust it to you,^^ he observed with a flat- 
tering glance. woman who can make your mince 
pies, dear lady, need not worry about her rights.^^ 

^^How is George, General asked Miss Matoaca, 
with an air of gentle, offended dignity. heard he 
had come to live with you since his mother^s death. 

'^So he has, the rascal,^^ responded the General, “and 
a nephew under twelve years of age is a severe strain on 
the habits of an elderly bachelor. 

The corners of Miss Matoaca^s mouth grew suddenly 
prim. 

“I suppose you could hardly close the door on your 
sister^s orphan son,’^ she observed, in a severer tone 
than I had yet heard her use. 

He sighed, and the sigh appeared to pass in the forir^ 
of a tremor through his white-trousered legs. 

“Ah, that^s it,’^ he rejoined. “You ladies ought to 
be thankful that you havenT our responsibilities. 
No, no, thank you, I wonT come in. My respects to 
Miss Mitty and to yourself.^' 

The gate closed softly as if after a love tryst. Miss 
Matoaca disappeared into the garden, and the GeneraFs 


96 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


expression changed from its jocose and smiling flattery 
to a look of genuine annoyance. 

^^No, I don^t want a paper, boy!'^ he exclaimed. 

With a wave of his gold-headed cane in my direction, 
he would have passed on his way, but at his first step, 
happily for me, his toe struck against a loosened brick, 
and the pain of the shock caused him to bend over and 
begin rubbing his gouty foot, with an exclamation 
that sounded suspiciously like an oath. Where was 
the roguish humour now in the small watery grey eyes ? 
The gout, not ^Hhe sex,” had him ignominiously by the 
heel. 

^^If you please. General, do you remember me?” 
I enquired timidly. 

Still clasping his foot, he turned a crimson glare 
upon me. Damnation! — I mean Good Lord, have 
mercy on my toe, why should I remember you?” 

^^It was on Church Hill almost four years ago, you 
promised,” I suggested as a gentle spur to his memory. 

^^And you expect me to remember what I promised 
four years ago?” he rejoined with a sly twinkle. Why, 
bless my soul, youTe worse than a woman.” 

'^You asked me, sir, if I wanted to grow up and be 
President,” I returned, not without resentment. 

Releasing his ankle abruptly, he stood up and slapped 
his thigh. 

Great Jehosaphat! If you ainT the little chap 
who was content to be nothing less than God Al- 
mighty!” he exclaimed. ^HVe told that story a 
hundred times if IVe told it once.” 

^^Then perhaps youfll help me a little, sir,” I sug- 
gested. 


I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LADDER 97 


^^Help you to become God Almighty he chuckled. 

^^No, sir, help me to be the president of the Great 
South Midland and Atlantic Railroad.’^ 

^^Then youll be satisfied with the lesser office, eh?^^ 
shall, sir, if — if there isn’t anything better.” 

Again he slapped his thigh and again he chuckled. 
^^But I’ve got one boy already. I don’t want an- 
other,” he protested. ^^Good Lord, one is bad enough 
when he’s not your own.” 

Whether or not he really supposed that I was a 
serious applicant for adoption, I cannot say, but his 
face put on immediately an harassed and suffering 
look. 

^'Have you ever had a twinge of gout, boy?” he 
enquired. 

'^No, sir.” 

^'Then you’re lucky — damned lucky. When you 
go to bed to-night you get down on your knees and 
thank the Lord that you’ve never had a twinge of 
gout. You can even eat a strawberry without feeling 
it, I reckon?” 

I replied humbly that I certainly could if I ever got 
the chance. 

^^And yet you ain’t satisfied — you’re asking to 
be president of a damned railroad — a boy who can 
eat a strawberry without feeling it !” 

He moved on, limping slightly, and like a small 
persistent devil of temptation, I kept at his elbow. 

'Hsn’t there anything that you can do for me, sir?” 
I asked, at the point of tears. 

^^Do for you? Bless my soul, boy, if I had your 
joints I shouldn’t want anything that anybody could 


98 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


do for me. Can^t you walk, hop, skip, jump, all you 
want to?^^ 

This was so manifestly unfair that I retorted stub- 
bornly, '^But I donT want to.” 

He glanced down on me with a flicker of his still 
charming smile. 

^'Well, you would if you were president of the Great 
South Midland and Atlantic and had looked into the 
evening paper,” he said. 

^^Are you president of it still, sir?” 

^‘Eh? eh? Youfll be wanting to push me out of 
my job next, I suppose ? ” 

^H^d like to have it when you are dead, sir,” I replied. 

But this instead of gratifying the General appeared 
plainly to annoy him. There now, you^d better run 
along and sell your papers,” he remarked irritably. 
'Hf I give you a dime, will you quit bothering me?” 

^H^d rather you’d give me a start, sir, as you prom- 
ised.” 

'^Good Lord! There you are again! Do you know 
the meaning of n-u-i-s-a-n-c-e, boy?” 

‘^No, sir.” 

^‘Well, ask your teacher the next time you go to 
school.” 

^‘1 don’t go to school. I work.” 

'^You work, eh? Well, look here, let’s see. What 
do you want of me?” 

thought you might tell me how to begin. I don’t 
want to stay common.” 

For a moment his attention seemed flxed on a gold 
pencil which he had taken from his waistcoat pocket. 
Then opening his card-case he scribbled a line on a 


I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LADDER 99 


card and handed it to me. you choose you may 
take that to Bob Brackett at the Old Dominion To- 
bacco Works, on Twenty-fifth Street, near the river,’' 
he said, not unkindly. he happens to want a 

boy, he may give you a job; but remember, I don’t 
promise you that he will want one, — and if he does, 
it isn’t likely he’d make you president on the spot,” 
he concluded, with a chuckle. 

Waving a gesture of dismissal he started off at a 
hobble; then catching the eye of a lady in a passing 
carriage, he straightened himself, bowed with a gallant 
flourish of his wide-brimmed hat, and went on with 
a look of agony but a jaunty pace. As I turned, a 
minute later, to discover who could have wrought this 
startling change in the behaviour of the General, an 
open surrey, the bottom filled with a pink cloud of wild 
azaleas, stopped at the curbing before the grey house, 
and the faces of Miss Mitty and Sally shone upon me 
over the blossoms. The child was coloured like a 
flower from the sun and wind, and there was a soft 
dewy look about her flushed cheeks, and her very full 
red lips. At the corner of her mouth, near her square 
little chin, a tiny white scar showed like a dimple, 
giving to her lower lip when she laughed an expression 
of charming archness. I remember these things now 
— at the moment there was no room for them in my 
whirling thoughts. 

^^Oh!” cried the little girl in a burst of happiness, 
^Hhere’s my boy !” 

The next minute she had leaped out of the carriage 
and was bounding across the pavement. Her arms 
were filled with azalea, and loosened petals fluttered 


100 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


like a swarm of pink and white moths around 
her. 

''What are you doing, boy?^^ she asked. "Where 
is your basket 

"It^s at the market. I^m selling papers.’^ 

"Come, Sally, commanded Miss Mitty, stepping 
out of the surrey with the rest of the flowers. "You 
must not stop in the street to talk to people you don’t 
know.” 

"But I do know him. Aunt Mitty, he brings our 
marketing.” 

"Well, come in anyway. You are breaking the 
flowers.” 

The strong, heady perfume filled my nostrils, though 
when I remember it now it changes to the scent of 
wallflowers, which clings always about my memory 
of the old grey house, with its delicate lace curtains 
draped back from the small square window-panes as if 
a face looked out on the crooked pavement. 

"Please, Aunt Mitty, let me buy a paper,” begged 
the child. 

"A paper, Sally ! What on earth would you do 
with a paper?” 

"Couldn’t I roll up my hair in it. Auntie?” 

"You don’t roll up your hair in newspapers. Here, 
come in. I can’t wait any longer.” 

Lingering an instant, Sally leaned toward me over 
the pink cloud of azalea. "I’d just love to play with 
you and Samuel,” she said with the sparkling anima- 
tion I remembered from our first meeting, "but dear 
Aunt Mitty has so much pride, you know.” 

She bent still lower, gave Samuel an impassioned 


I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LADDER 101 


hug with her free arm, and then turning quickly away 
ran up the short flight of steps and disappeared into 
the house. The next instant the door closed sharply 
after her, and only the small rosy petals fluttering in the 
wind were left to prove to me that I was really awake 
and it was not a dream. 


CHAPTER VIII 


IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS 

There was no lingering at kitchen doorways with 
scolding white-turbaned cooks next morning, for 
as soon as I had delivered the marketing, I returned 
the basket to John Chitling, and set out down Twenty- 
fifth Street in the direction of the river. As I went on, 
a dry, pungent odour seemed to escape from the pave- 
ment beneath and invade the air. The earth was 
drenched with it, the crumbling bricks, the negro hovels, 
the few sickly ailantus trees, exuded the sharp scent, 
and even the wind brought stray wafts, as from a 
giant's pipe, when it blew in gusts up from the river- 
bottom. Overhead the sky appeared to hang flat 
and low as if seen through a thin brown veil, and the 
ancient warehouses, sloping toward the river, rose like 
sombre prisons out of the murky air. It was still 
before the introduction of modern machinery into the 
factories, and as I approached the rotting wooden 
steps which led into the largest building, loose leaves 
of tobacco, scattered in the unloading, rustled with a 
sharp, crackling noise under my feet. 

Inside, a clerk on a high stool, with a massive ledger 
before him, looked up at my entrance, and stuck his pen 
behind his ear with a sigh of relief. 

^^A gentleman told me you might want a boy, sir," 
I began. 


102 


IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS 


103 


He got down from his stool, and sauntering across 
the room, took a long drink from a bucket of water 
that stood by the door. 

''What gentleman?’^ he enquired, as he flirted a few 
drops on the steps outside, and returned the tin dipper 
to the rusty nail over the bucket. 

I drew out the card, which I had kept carefully 
wrapped in a piece of brown paper in my trousers' 
pocket. When I handed it to him, he looked at 
it with a low whistle and stood twirling it in hi? 
fingers. 

"The gentleman owns about nine- tenths of the busi- 
ness," he remarked for my information. Then turn- 
ing his head he called over his shoulder to some one 
hidden behind the massive ledgers on the desk. "I 
say. Bob, here's a boy the General's sent along. 
What'll you do with him?" 

Bob, a big, blowzy man, who appeared to be upon 
terms of intimacy with every clerk in the qffice, came 
leisurely out into the room, and looked me over with 
what I felt to be a shrewd and yet not unkindly 
glance. "It's the second he's sent down in two weeks," 
he observed, "but this one seems sprightly enough. 
What's your name, boy?" 

"Ben Starr." 

"Well, Ben, what're you good for?" 

" 'Most anything, sir." 

" 'Most anything, eh ? Well, come along, and I'll put 
you at 'most anything." 

He spoke in a pleasant, jovial tone, which made me 
adore him on the spot ; and as he led me across a dark 
hall and up a sagging flight of steps, he enquired good- 


104 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


humouredly how I had met General Bolingbroke and 
why he had given me his card. 

^^He’s a great man, is the General he exclaimed 
with enthusiasm. ''When you met him, my boy, you 
met the biggest man in the South to-day.^’ 

Immediately the crimson face, the white-trousered 
legs, the round stomach, and even the gouty toe, 
were surrounded in my imagination with a romantic 
halo. "What’s he done to make him so big?” I 
asked. 

"Done? Why, he’s done everything. He’s opened 
the South, he’s restored trade, he’s made an honest 
fortune out of the carpet-baggers. It’s something to 
own nine- tenths of the Old Dominion Tobacco Works, 
and to be vice-president of the Bonfield Trust Company, 
but it’s a long sight better to be president of the Great 
South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. If you happen 
to know of a bigger job than that, I wish you’d point 
it out.” 

I couldn’t point it out, and so I told him, at which he 
gave a friendly guffaw and led the way in silence up 
the sagging staircase. At that moment all that had 
been mere formless ambition in my mind was con- 
centrated into a single burning desire ; and I swore to 
myself, as I followed Bob, the manager, up the dark 
staircase to the leaf department, that I, too, would 
become before I died the biggest man in the South and 
the president of the Great South Midland and Atlantic 
Railroad. The idea which was to possess me utterly 
for thirty years dropped into my brain and took root 
on that morning in the heavy atmosphere of the Old 
Dominion Tobacco Works. From that hour I walked 


IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS 


105 


not aimlessly, but toward a definite end. I might start 
in life, I told myself, with a market basket, but I would 
start also with the resolution that out of the market 
basket the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad 
should arise. The vow was still on my lips when the 
large sliding door on the landing swung open, and 
we entered an immense barnlike room, in which 
three or four hundred negroes were at work stemming 
tobacco. 

At first the stagnant fumes of the dry leaf mingling 
with the odours of so many tightly packed bodies, 
caused me to turn suddenly dizzy, and the rows of 
shining black faces swam before my eyes in a blur with 
the brilliantly dyed turbans of the women. Then I grit- 
ted my teeth fiercely, the mist cleared, and I listened 
undisturbed to the melancholy chant which accom- 
panied the rhythmic movements of the lithe brown 
fingers. 

At either end of the room, which covered the entire 
length and breadth of the building, the windows were 
shut fast, and on the outside, close against the green- 
ish panes, innumerable flies swarmed like a black cur- 
tain. Before the long troughs stretching waist high 
from wall to wall, hundreds of negroes stood cease- 
lessly stripping the dry leaves from the stems; and 
above the soft golden brown piles of tobacco, the blur 
of colour separated into distinct and vivid splashes of 
red, blue, and orange. Back and forth in the obscurity 
these brilliantly coloured turbans nodded like savage 
flowers amid a crowd of black faces, in which the eyes 
alone, very large, wide open, and with gleaming white 
circles around the pupils, appeared to me to be really 


106 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


alive and human. They were singing as we entered, 
and the sound did not stop while the manager crossed 
the floor and paused for an instant beside the nearest 
worker, a brawny, coal-black negro, with a red shirt 
open at his throat, on which I saw a strange, jagged 
scar, running f»rom ear to chest, like the enigmatical 
symbol of some savage rite I could not understand. 
Without turning his head at the manager's approach, 
he picked up a great leaf and stripped it from the stem 
at a single stroke, while his tremendous bass voice 
rolled like the music of an organ over the deep piles of 
tobacco before which he stood. Above this rich vol- 
ume of sound fluted the piercing thin sopranos of the 
women, piping higher, higher, until the ancient hymn 
resolved itself into something that was neither human 
nor animal, but so elemental, so primeval, that it was 
like a voice imprisoned in the soil — a dumb and in- 
articulate music, rooted deep, and without conscious- 
ness, in the passionate earth. Over the mass of dark 
faces, as they rocked back and forth, I saw light 
shadows tremble, as faint and swift as the shadows of 
passing clouds, while here and there a bright red or 
yellow head-dress rose slightly higher than its neigh- 
bours, and floated above the rippling mass like a flower 
on a stream. And it seemed to me as I stood there, 
half terrified by the close, hot smells and the savage 
colours, that something within me stirred and awakened 
like a secret that I had carried shut up in myself since 
birth. The music grew louder in my ears, as if I, too, 
were a part of it, and for the first time I heard clearly 
the words : — 


IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS 


107 


Christ totes de young lambs in his bosom, bosom, 
Christ totes de young lambs in his bosom, bosom, 
Christ totes de young lambs in his bosom, bosom, 
Fa-ther, de ye-ar-ur Ju-bi-le-e ! 

Bob, the manager, picked up a leaf from the nearest 
trough, examined it carefully, and tossed it aside. The 
great black negro turned his head slowly toward him, 
the jagged scar standing out like a cord above the open 
collar of his red shirt. 

Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah, 

Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah, 

Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah, 
Fa-ther, de ye-ar-ur Ju-bi-le-e ! ” 

''If I were to leave you here an hour what would 
you do, Ben?^^ asked the manager suddenly, speaking 
close to my ear. 

I thought for a moment. "Learn to stem tobacco 
quick^en they do,’^ I replied at last. 

"What have you found out since you came in?^^ 

"That you must strip the leaf off clean and throw it 
into the big trough that slides it downstairs somewhere.^' 

A smile crossed his face. " If I give you a job it wonT 
be much more than running up and down stairs with 
messages,^^ he said; "that^s what a nigger canT do.’' 
He hesitated an instant; "but that’s the way I began,” 
he added kindly, "under General Bolingbroke.” 

I looked up quickly, "And was it the way he began ? ” 

"Oh, well, hardly. He belongs to one of the old 
families, you know. His father was a great planter and 
he started on top.” 

My crestfallen look must have moved his pity, I 


108 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


think, for he said as he turned away and we walked 
down the long room, ^^It ain^t the start that makes 
the man, youngster, but the man that makes the start/^ 

The doors swung together behind us, and we de- 
scended the dark staircase, with the piercing soprano 
voices fluting in our ears. 

“ Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah, 

Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah.^' 

That afternoon I went home, full of hope, to my attic 
in the Old Market quarter. Then as the weeks went 
on, and I took my place gradually as a small laborious 
worker in the buzzing hive of human industry, what- 
ever romance had attached itself to the tobacco factory, 
scattered and vanished in the hard, dry atmosphere 
of the reality. My part was to run errands up and 
down the dark staircase for the manager of the leaf 
department, or to stand for hours on hot days in the 
stagnant air, amid the reeking smells of the big room, 
where the army of ^^stemmers^^ rocked ceaselessly 
back and forth to the sound of their savage music. In 
all those weary weeks I had passed General Boling- 
broke but once, and by the blank look on his great 
perspiring face, I saw that my hero had forgotten ut- 
terly the incident of my existence. Yet as I turned 
on the curbing and looked after him, while he ploughed, 
wiping his forehead, up the long hill, under the leaves 
of mulberry and catalpa trees, I felt instinctively that 
my future triumphs would be in a measure the over- 
throw of the things for which he and his generation 
had stood. The manager's casual phrase ^Hhe old 


IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS 


109 


families/’ had bred in me a secret resentment, for I 
knew in my heart that the genial aristocracy, repre- 
sented by the president of the Great South Midland 
and Atlantic Railroad, was in reality the enemy, and 
not the friend, of such as I. 

The long, hot summer unfolded slowly while I trudged 
to the factory in the blinding mornings and back again 
to the Old Market at the suffocating hour of sunset. 
Over the doors of the negro hovels luxuriant gourd 
vines hung in festoons of large fan-shaped leaves, and 
above the high plank fences at the back, gaudy sun- 
flowers nodded their heads to me as I went wearily by. 
The richer quarter of the city had blossomed into a 
fragrant bower, but I saw only the squalid surround- 
ings of the Old Market, with its covered wagons, its 
overripe melons, its prowling dogs hunting in refuse 
heaps, and beyond this the crooked street, which led 
to the tobacco factory and then sagged slowly down to 
the river-bottom. Sometimes I would lean from my 
little window at night into the stifling atmosphere, 
where the humming of a mosquito, or the whirring of a 
moth, made the only noise, and think of the enchanted 
garden lying desolate and lovely under the soft shin- 
ing of the stars. Were the ghosts moving up and down 
the terraces in the mazes of scented box, I wondered ? 
Then the garden would fade far away from me into a 
cool, still distance, while I knelt with my head in my 
hands, panting for breath in the motionless air. Out- 
side the shadow of the Old Market lay over all, stretch- 
ing sombre and black to where I crouched, a lonely, 
half-naked child at my attic window. And so at last, 
bathed in sweat, I would fall asleep, to awaken at dawn 


110 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


when the covered wagons passed through the streets 
below, and the cry of ''Wa-ter-mil-lion ! Wa-ter- 
mil-lion rang in the silence. Then the sun would 
rise slowly, the day begin, and Mrs. Chitling’s cheerful 
bustle would start anev/. Tired, sleepless, despairing, 
I would set off to work at last, while the Great South 
Midland Railroad receded farther and farther into the 
dim province of inaccessible things. 

After a long August day, when the factory had shut 
down while it was yet afternoon, I crept up to Church 
Hill, and looked again over the spiked wall into the 
enchanted garden. It was deserted and seemed very 
sad, I thought, for its only tenants appeared to be the 
swallows that flew, with short cries, in and out of the 
white columns. On the front door a large sign hung, 
reading ‘^For Sale”; and turning away with a sinking 
heart, I went on to Mrs. Cudlip’s in the hope of catching 
a glimpse of baby Jessy, whom I had not seen since I 
ran away. She was playing on the sidewalk, a pretty, 
golden-haired little girl, with the melting blue eyes of 
my father ; and when she caught sight of me, she gave 
a gurgling cry and ran straight to me out of the arms of 
President, who, I saw to my surprise, was standing in 
the doorway of our old home. He was taller than my 
father now, with the same kind, sheepish face, and the 
awkward movements as of an overgrown boy. 

^'Wall, if it ain’t Benjy!” he exclaimed, his slow 
wits paralysed by my unexpected appearance. 'Hf it 
ain’t Benjy !” 

Turning aside he spat a wad of tobacco into the gut- 
ter, and then coming toward me, seized both my hands 
and wrung them in his big fists with a grip that hurt. 


IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS 


111 


'^You^re comin^ along now, ainH you, Benjy?^^ he 
inquired proudly. 

^^Tith my Pethedent,’^ lisped baby Jessy at his 
knees, and he stooped from his great height and lifted 
her in his arms with the gentleness of a woman. 

^^What about an eddication, Benjy boy?’^ he asked 
over the golden curls. 

can^t get an education and work, too,^^ I answered, 
and Pve got to work. How^spa?^' 

^^He^s taken an awful fondness to the bottle,^^ replied 
President, with a sly wink, '^an^ if thar^s a thing on 
earth that can fill a man^s thoughts till it crowds out 
everything else in it, it^s the bottle. But speakin’ of 
an eddication, you see I never had one either, an’ I 
tell you, when you don’t have it, you miss it every 
blessed minute of yo’ life. Whenever I see a man step 
on ahead of me in the race, I say to myself, ^Thar goes 
an eddication. It’s the eddication in him that’s 
a-movin’ an’ not the man.’ You mark my words, 
Benjy, I’ve stood stock still an’ seen ’em stridin’ on 
that didn’t have one bloomin’ thing inside of ’em ex- 
cept an eddication.” 

^^But how am I to get it, President?” I asked 
dolefully. ^^I’ve got to work.^'’ 

^'Get it out of books, Benjy. It’s in ’em if you only 
have the patience to stick at ’em till you get it out. 
I never had on o’ count of my eyes and my slowness, 
but you’re young an’ peart an’ you don’t get confused 
by the printed letters.” 

Diving into his bulging pockets, he took out a big 
leather purse, from which he extracted a- dollar and 
handed it to me. ^^Let that go toward an eddication,” 


112 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


he said, adding: you can get it out of books I’ll 

send you a dollar toward it every week I live. That’s 
a kind of starter, anyway, ain’t it?” 

I replied that I thought it was, and carefully twisted 
the money into the torn lining of my pocket. 

“I’m goin’ back to West Virginy to-night,” he re- 
sumed. “Arter I’ve seen you an’ the little sister thar 
ain’t any use my hangin’ on out of work.” 

“Have you got a good place. President?” 

“As good as can be expected for a plain man without 
an eddication,” he responded sadly, and a half hour 
later, when I said good-by to him, with a sob, he came 
to the brow of the hill, with little Jessy clinging to his 
hand, and called after me solemnly, “Remember, 
Benjy boy, what you want is an eddication !” 

So impressed was I by the earnestness of this advice, 
that as I went back down the dreary hill, with its 
musty second-hand clothes’ shops, its noisy barrooms, 
and its general aspect of decay and poverty, I felt 
that my surroundings smothered me because I lacked 
the peculiar virtue which enabled a man to overcome 
the adverse circumstances in which he was born. The 
hot August day was drawing to its end, and the stag- 
nant air in which I moved seemed burdened with sweat 
until it had become a tangible thing. The gourd vines 
were hanging limp now over the negro hovels, as if the 
weight of the yellow globes dragged them to the earth ; 
and in the small square yards at the back, the wilted 
sunflowers seemed trying to hide their scorched faces 
from the last gaze of a too ardent lover. Whole 
families had swarmed out into the streets, and from 
time to time I stepped over a negro urchin, who lay 


IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS 


113 


flat on his stomach, drinking the juice of an overripe 
watermelon out of the rind. Above the dirt and squalor 
the street cries still rang out from covered wagons which 
crawled ceaslessly back and forth from the country to 
the Old Market. '^Wa-ter-mil-lion. Wa-ter-mil-l-i-o-ri ! 
Hyeris yo^ Wa-ter-mil-lion fresh f^om de vi-ne!^^ 
And as I shut my eyes against the dirt, and my nostrils 
against the odours, I saw always in my imagination the 
enchanted garden, with its cool sweet magnolias and 
laburnums, and its great white columns from which the 
swallows flew, with short cries, toward the sunset. 

A white shopkeeper and a mulatto woman had got 
into a quarrel on the pavement, and turning away to 
avoid them, I stumbled by accident into the open door 
of a second-hand shop, where the proprietor sat on an 
old cooking-stove drinking a glass of beer. As I started 
back my frightened glance lit on a heap of dusty 
volumes in one corner, and in reply to a question, which 
I put the next instant in a trembling voice, I was in- 
formed that I might have the whole pile for fifty cents, 
provided I^d clear them out on the spot. The bargain 
was no sooner clinched than I gathered the books in 
my arms and staggered under their weight in the di- 
rection of Mrs. Chitling’s. Even for a grown man they 
would have made a big armful, and when at last I 
toiled up to my attic, and dropped on my knees by the 
open window, I was shaking from head to foot with ex- 
haustion. The dust was thick on my hands and arms, 
and as I turned them over eagerly by the red light of the 
sunset, the worm-eaten bindings left queer greenish 
stains on my fingers. Among a number of loose maga- 
zines called The Farmer^s Friend^ I found an illus- 


1 


114 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


trated, rather handsome copy of '^Pilgrim’s Progress/’ 
presented, as an inscription on the flyleaf testified, 
to one Jeremiah Wakefield as a reward for deportment; 
the entire eight volumes of ^^Sir Charles Grandison^’ ; 
a complete Johnson’s Dictionary, with the binding 
missing; and Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy” 
in faded crimson morocco. When I had dusted them 
carefully on an old shirt, and arranged them on the 
three-cornered shelf at the head of my cot, I felt, 
with a glow of satisfaction, that the foundations of that 
education to which President had contributed were 
already laid in my brain. If the secret of the future 
had been imprisoned in those mouldy books, I could 
hardly have attacked them with greater earnestness; 
and there was probably no accident in my life which 
directed so powerfully my fortunes as the one that sent 
me stumbling into that second-hand shop on that 
afternoon in mid-August. I can imagine what I should 
have been if I had never had the help of a friend in my 
career, but when I try to think of myself as unaided by 
Johnson’s Dictionary, or by '^Sir Charles Grandison,” 
whose prosiest speeches I committed joyfully to 
memory, my fancy stumbles in vain in the attempt. 
For five drudging years those books were my constant 
companions, my one resource, and to conceive of myself 
without them is to conceive of another and an entirely 
different man. If there was harm in any of them, 
which I doubt, it was clothed to appeal to an older and 
a less ignorant imagination than mine ; and from the 
elaborate treatises on love melancholy in Burton’s 
''Anatomy,” I extracted merely the fine aromatic 
flavour of his quotations. 


CHAPTER IX 


I LEARN A LITTLE LATIN AND A GREAT DEAL OF LIFE 

My opportunity came at last when Bob Brackett, the 
manager of the leaf department, discovered me one 
afternoon tucked away with the half of Johnson^s 
Dictionary in a corner of the stemming room, where 
the negroes were singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. 

^‘1 say, Ben, why ainT you out on the floor?’’ he 
asked. 

I laid the book face downwards on the window-sill, 
and came out, embarrassed and secretive, to where he 
stood. ^‘1 just dropped down there a minute ago to 
rest,” I replied. 

‘^You weren’t resting, you were reading. Show me 
the book.” 

Without a word I handed him the great dictionary, 
and he fingered the dog-eared pages with a critical and 
reflective air. 

^^Holy Moses ! it ain’t a blessed thing except words !” 
he exclaimed, after a minute. ''Do you mean to tell 
me you can sit down and read a dictionary for the 
pure pleasure of reading?” 

"I wasn’t reading, I was learning,” I answered. 

"Learning how?” 

"Learning by heart. I’ve already got as far as the 
e/’s.” 


115 


116 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


You mean you can say every last word of them a^s, 

and c^s straight off?^^ 

I nodded gravely, my hands behind my back, my 
eyes on the beams in the ceiling. ^ ^ As far as the d’s” 

^^And you^re doing all this learning just to get an 
education, ainH you?” 

My eyes dropped from the beams and I shook my head. 

don^t believe it^s there, sir.” 

^'What? Where?” 

I don^t believe an education is in them. I did once.” 

For a moment he stood turning over the discoloured 
leaves without replying. reckon you can tell me the 
meaning of ’most any word, eh, Ben?” he demanded. 

^^Not unless it begins with a, 6, or c, sir.” 

‘^Well, any word beginning with an a, then, that’s 
something. There’re a precious lot of ’em. How 
about allelujah, how’s that for a mouthful?” 

Instinctively my eyes closed, and I began my reply 
in a tone that seemed to chime in with the negro’s 
melody. 

Falsely written for Hallelujah, a word of spiritual 
exultation, used in hymns; signifies. Praise God. He 
will set his tongue, to those pious divine strains; which 
may he a proper prceludium to those allelujahs, he hopes 
eternally to sing. 

Government of the TongueJ^^ 

“Hooray! That’s a whopper!” he exclaimed, with 
enthusiasm. “What’s a prae-lu-di-um ? ” 

“I told you I hadn’t got to p’s yet,” I returned, not 
without resentment. 

The hymn changed suddenly; the negro in the red 
shirt, with the scar on his neck, turned his great oxlike 


I LEARN A LITTLE LATIN 


117 


eyes upon me, and the next instant his superb voice 
rolled, rich and deep, as the sound of an organ, from 
his bared black chest. 

A-settin’ in de kingdom, 

Y-e-s, m-y-L-a-w-d ! ’’ 

'^Well, youVe got gumption,'' said Bob, the manager. 
^^That's what I always lacked — just plain gumption, 
and when you ain't got it, there's nothing to take its 
place. I was talking to General Bolingbroke about you 
yesterday, Ben, and that's what I said. ^There's but 
one word for that boy. General, and it's gumption.'" 

I accepted the tribute with a swelling heart. What 
good will it do me if I can't get an education?" I 
demanded. 

''It's that will give it to you, Ben. Why, don't you 
know every blessed word in the English language that 
begins with an a ? That's more than I know — that's 
more, I reckon," he burst out, "than the General him- 
self knows !" 

In this there was comfort, if a feeble one. "But 
there're so many other things besides the a's that you've 
got to learn," I responded. 

"Yes, but if you learn the a's, you'll learn the other 
things, — now ain't that logic ? The trouble with me, 
you see, is that I learned the other things without 
knowing a blamed sight of an a. I tell you what I'll 
do, Ben, my boy. I'll speak to the General about it the 
very next time he comes to the factory." 

He gave me back the dictionary, and I applied myself 
to its pages with a terrible earnestness while I awaited 
the great man's attention. 


118 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


It was a week before it came, for the General, having 
gone North on affairs of the railroad, did not condescend 
to concern himself with my destiny until the more 
important business was arranged and despatched. 
Being in a bland mood, however, upon his return, it 
appeared that he had listened and expressed himself 
to some purpose at last. 

^^Tell him to go to Theophilus Pry and let me have 
his report,’^ was what he had said. 

^^But who is Theophilus Pry I enquired, when this 
was repeated to me by Bob Brackett. 

^^Dr. Theophilus Pry, an old friend of the GeneraPs, 
who takes his nephew to coach in the evenings. The 
doctor^s very poor, I believe, because they say of him 
that he never refuses a patient and never sends a bill. 
He swears there isnT enough knowledge in his profes- 
sion to make it worth anybody's money. 

''And where does he live?^' 

"In that little old house with the office in the yard on 
Franklin Street. The General says youTe to go to him 
this evening at eight o^clock.^^ 

The sound of my beating heart was so loud in my 
ears that I hurriedly buttoned my jacket across it. 
Then as if I were to be examined on Johnson’s Diction- 
ary, my lips began to move silently while I spelled over 
the biggest words. If I could only confine my future 
conversations to the use of the a’s and 6’s, I felt that I 
might safely pass through life without desperate dis- 
aster in the matter of speech. 

It was a mild October evening, with a smoky blue 
haze, through which a single star shone over the clipped 
box in Dr. Theophilus Pry’s garden, when I opened the 


I LEARN A LITTLE LATIN 


lid 


iron gate and went softly along the pebbled walk to the 
square little office standing detached from the house. 
A black servant, carrying a plate of waffies from the 
outside kitchen, informed me in a querulous voice that 
the doctor was still at supper, but I might go in and 
wait ; and accepting the suggestion withmore amiability 
than accompanied it, I entered the small, cheerful room, 
where a lamp, with a lowered wick, burned under a green 
shade. Around the walls there were many ancient 
volumes in bindings of stout English calf, and on the 
mantelpiece, above which hung one of the original 
engravings of Latane^s ^^Burial,^^ two enormous glass 
jars, marked Calomel and “Quinine,^^ presided over 
the apartment with an air of medicinal solemnity. 
They were the only visible and positive evidence of the 
doctor^s calling in life, and when I knew him better in 
after years, I discovered that they were the only drugs 
he admitted to a place in the profession of healing. 
To the day of his death, he administered these alterna- 
tives with a high finality and an imposing presence. 
It was told of him that he considered but one symptom, 
and this he discovered with his hand on the patient^s 
pulse and his eyes on a big loud-ticking watch in a 
hunting case. If the pulse was quick, he prescribed 
quinine, if sluggish, he ordered calomel. To dally with 
minor ailments was as much beneath him as to tempo- 
rise with modern medicine. In his last years he was 
still suspicious of vaccination, and entertained a pro- 
found contempt for the knife. Beyond his faith in calo- 
mel and quinine, there were but two articles in his 
creed ; he believed first in cleanliness, secondly in God. 
‘'Madam,'' he is reported to have remarked irreverently 


120 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

to a mother whom he found praying for her child^J 
recovery in the midst of a dirty house, ^^when God 
doesn^t respond to prayer, He sometimes answers a 
broom and a bucket of soapsuds/' Honest, affable, 
adored, he presented the singular spectacle of a 
physician who scorned medicine, and yet who, it was 
said, had fewer deaths and more recoveries to his credit 
than any other practitioner of his generation. This 
belief arose probably in the legendary glamour which 
resulted from his boundless, though mysterious, charities ; 
for despite the fact that he had until his death a large 
and devoted following, he lived all his life in a condi- 
tion of genteel poverty. His single weakness was, I 
believe, an utter inability to appreciate the exchange 
value of dollars and cents; and this failing grew upon 
him so rapidly in his declining years that Mrs. Clay, his 
widowed sister, who kept his house, was at last obliged 
to “put up pickles" for the market in order to keep a 
roof over her brother's distinguished head. 

I was sitting in one of the worn leather chairs under 
the green lamp, when the door opened and shut quickly, 
and Dr. Theophilus Pry came in and held out his hand. 

“So you're the lad George was telling me about," 
he began at once, with a charming, straightforward 
courtesy. “I hope I haven't kept you waiting 
many minutes, sir." 

He was spare and tall, with stooping shoulders, a 
hooked nose, bearing a few red veins, and a smile that 
lit up his face like the flash of a lantern. Everything 
about his clothes that could be coloured was of a bright, 
strong red, his cravat, his big silk handkerchief, and 
the polka dots in his black stockings. “Yes, I like any 


I LEARN A LITTLE LATIN 


121 


colour as long as it’s red/’ he was fond of saying with 
his genial chuckle. 

Bending over the green baize cloth on the table, he 
pushed away a pile of examination papers, and raised 
the wick of the lamp. 

^^So you’ve started out to learn Dr. Johnson’s Dic- 
tionary by heart,” he observed. ^^Now by a fair calcu- 
lation how long do you suppose it will take you?” 

I replied with diffidence that it appeared to me now as 
if it would very likely take me till the Day of Judg- 
ment. 

Well, ’tis as good an occupation as most, and a long 
ways better than some,” commented the doctor. 
‘^You’ve come to me, haven’t you, because you think 
you’d like to learn a little Latin ?” 

I’d like to learn anything, sir, that will help me to get 
on.” 

What’s the business?” 

‘^Tobacco.” 

don’t know that Latin will help you much there, 
unless it aids you to name a blend.” 

^^It — it isn’t only that, sir, I — I want an education 
— not just a common one.” 

A smile broke suddenly like a beam of light on his 
face, and I understood all at once why his calomel and 
his quinine so often cured. At that moment I should 
have swallowed tar water on faith if he had prescribed 
it. 

don’t know much about you, my lad,” he remarked 
with a grave, old-fashioned courtesy, which lifted me 
several feet above the spot of carpet on which I stood, 
‘‘but a gentleman who starts out to learn old Samuel 


122 


THE EOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Johnson^s Dictionary by heart, is a gentleman I^ll 
give my hand to.” 

With my pulses throbbing hard, I watched him take 
down a dog-eared Latin Grammar, and begin turning the 
pages ; and when, after a minute, he put a few simple 
questions to me, I answered as well as I could for the 
lump in my throat. ^^It^s the fashion now to neglect 
the classics,” he said sadly, ^^and a man had the im- 
pertinence to tell me yesterday that the only use for a 
dead language was to write prescriptions for sick people 
in it. But I maintain, and I will repeat it, that you 
never find a gentleman of cultured and elevated tastes 
who has not at least a bowing acquaintance with the 
Latin language. The common man may deride — ” 

I looked up quickly. ^^If you please, sir, I^d like to 
learn it,” I broke in with determination. 

He glanced at me kindly, secretly flattered, I suspect, 
by my spontaneous tribute to his eloquence, and the 
leaves of the Latin Grammar had fluttered open, when 
the door swung wide with a cheerful bang, and a boy 
of about my own age, though considerably under my 
height and size, entered the room. 

^‘1 didnT get in from the ball game till an hour ago, 
doctor,” he exclaimed. Uncle George says please 
donT slam me if I am late.” 

Some surface resemblance to my hero of the railroad 
made me aware, even before Dr. Pry introduced 
us, that the newcomer was the young George” of 
whom I had heard. He was a fresh, high-coloured boy, 
whose features showed even now a slight forecast of 
General Bolingbroke^s awful redness. Before I looked 
at him I got a vague impression that he was hand- 


I LEARN A LITTLE LATIN 


123 


some j after I looked at him I began to wonder curi- 
ously why he was not ? His hair was of a bright chest- 
nut colour, very curly, and clipped unusually close, in 
order to hide the natural wave of which, I discovered 
later, he was ashamed. He had pleasant brown eyes, 
and a merry smile, which lent a singular charm to his 
face when it hovered about his mouth. 

^‘1 say, doctor, I wish you^d let me off to-night. 
1^11 do double to-morrow,^^ he begged, and then turned 
to me with his pleasant, intimate manner: ^^Don^t 
you hate Latin? I do. Before Dr. Theophilus be- 
gan coaching me I went to a woman, and that was 
worse — she made it so silly. I hate women, don^t 
you?^' 

Young George, observed Dr. Theophilus, with 
sternness, 'Hor every disrespectful allusion to the 
ladies, I shall give you an extra page of grammar.^' 
^H^m no worse than uncle, doctor. Uncle says — ” 
forbid you to repeat any flippant remarks of 
General' Bolingbroke’s, George, and you may tell him 
so, with my compliments, at breakfast. 

Opening his book, he glanced at me gravely over its 
pages, and the next instant my education in the ancient 
languages and the finer graces of society commenced. 

On that first evening I won a place in the doctor^s 
affections, which, I like to think, I never really lost in 
the many changes the future brought me. My obse- 
quious respect for dead tongues redeemed, to a great 
measure, the appalling ignorance I immediately dis- 
played of the merest rudiments of geography and 
history; and when the time came, I believe it even 
reconciled him to my bodily stature, which always 


124 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


appeared to him to be too large to conform to the 
smaller requirements of society. In my fourteenth 
year I began to grow rapidly, and his chief complaint 
of me after this was that I never learned to manage 
my hands and feet as if they really belonged to me — 
a failing that I am perfectly aware I was never able 
entirely to overcome. It would doubtless take the 
breeding of all the Bolingbrokes, he once informed me, 
with a sigh, to enable a man to carry a stature such as 
mine with the careless dignity which might possibly 
have been attained by a moderate birth and a smaller 
body. 

Nature has intended you for a prize-fighter, but 
God has made of you a gentleman, he added, with his 
fine, characteristic philosophy, which escaped me at 
the moment; ^^it is a blessing, I suppose, to be en- 
dowed with a healthy body, but if I were you, I should 
endeavour to keep my members constantly in my mind. 
It is the next best thing to behaving as if they did not 
exist.’’ 

This was said so regretfully that I hadn’t the heart 
to inform him that my mind, being of limited dimen- 
sions, found difficulty in accommodating at one and 
the same time my bodily members and the Latin lan- 
guage. Even my “ Caesar ” caused me less misery at this 
period than did the problem of the proper disposal of 
my hands and feet. Do what I would they were hope- 
lessly (by some singular freak of nature) in my way. 
The breeding of all the Bolingbrokes would have been 
taxed to its utmost, I believe, to behave for a single 
instant as if they did not exist. 

Except for the embarrassment of my increasing 


I LEARN A LITTLE LATIN 


125 


stature, the years that followed my introduction to Dr. 
Theophilus, as he was called, stand out in my memory 
as ones of almost unruffled happiness. The two great 
jars of calomel and quinine on the mantelpiece became 
like faces of familiar, beneficent friends; and the 
dusty bookcases, with their shining rows of old English 
bindings, formed an appropriate background for the 
flight of my wildest dreams. To this day those ado- 
lescent fancies have never detached themselves from 
the little office, the scattered bricks of which are now 
lying in the ruined garden between the blighted yew 
tree and the uprooted box. I can see them still cir- 
cling like vague faces around the green lamp, under 
which Dr. Theophilus sits, with his brown and white 
pointer, Robin, asleep at his feet. Sometimes there 
was a saucer of fresh raspberry jam brought in by Mrs. 
Clay, the widowed sister ; sometimes a basket of wine- 
sap apples ; and once a year, on the night before Christ- 
mas, a large slice of fruit cake and a very small tumbler 
of eggnog. Always there were the cheery smile, the 
pleasant talk, racy with anecdotes, and the wagging 
tail of Robin, the pointer. 

good dog, Ben, this little mongrel of yours, 
the doctor would say, as he stooped to pat Samuehs 
head; ^^but then, all dogs are good dogs. You re- 
member your Plutarch? Now, here^s this Robin of 
mine. I wouldn^t take five hundred dollars in my 
hand for him to-night.^^ At this Robin, the pointer, 
would lift his big brown eyes, and slip his soft nose into 
his master’s hand. '"I wouldn’t take five hundred 
dollars down for him,” Dr. Theophilus would repeat 
with emphasis. 


126 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


On the nights when our teacher was called out to a 
patient, as he often was, George Bolingbroke and I 
would push back the chairs for a game of checkers, or 
step outside into the garden for a wrestling match, in 
which I was always the victor. The physical propor- 
tions which the doctor lamented, were, I believe, the 
strongest hold I had upon the admiration of young 
George. Latin he treated with the same half-playful, 
half-contemptuous courtesy that I had observed in 
General Bolingbroke^s manner to ^Hhe ladies,^' and 
even the doctor he regarded as a mixture of a scholar 
and a mollycoddle. It was perfectly characteristic that 
one thing, and one thing only, should command his 
unqualified respect, and this was the possession of the 
potential power to knock him down. 


CHAPTER X 


IN WHICH I GROW UP 

In my eighteenth year, when I had achieved a posi- 
tion and a salary in the tobacco factory, I left the Old 
Market forever, and moved into a room, which Mrs. 
Clay had offered to rent to me, in the house of Dr. 
Theophilus. During the next twelve months my in- 
timacy with young George, who was about to enter 
the University, led to an acquaintance, though a slight 
one, with that great man, the General. As the years 
passed my dream of the Great South Midland and 
Atlantic Railroad, instead of evaporating, had become 
fixed in my mind as the fruition of all my toil, the end 
of all my ambition. I saw in it still, as I had seen in it 
that afternoon against the rosy sunset and the anchored 
vessel, the one glorious possibility, the great adventure. 
The GeneraPs plethoric figure, with his big paunch and 
his gouty toe, had never lost in my eyes the legendary 
light in which I had enveloped it; and when George 
suggested to me carelessly one spring afternoon that I 
should stop by his house and have a look at his uncle^s 
classical library, I felt my cheeks burn, while my heart 
beat an excited tattoo against my ribs. The house I 
knew by sight, a grave, low-browed mansion, with a 
fringe of purple wistaria draping the long porch; and 
it was under a pendulous shower of blossoms that we 
127 


128 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


found the General seated with the evening newspaper 
in his hand and his bandaged foot on a wicker stool. 
As we entered the gate he was making a face over a 
glass of water, while he complained fretfully to Dr. 
Theophilus, who sat in a rocking-chair, with Robin, the 
pointer, stretched on a rug at his feet. 

^^Idl never get used to the taste of water, if I live to 
be a hundred,^^ the great man was saying peevishly. 
^^To save my soul I can^t understand why the Lord 
made anything so darn flat!^^ 

A single lock of hair, growing just above the bald spot 
on his head, stirred in the soft wind like a tuft of 
bleached grass, while his lower, slightly protruding lip 
pursed itself into an angry and childish expression. 
He was paying the inevitable price, I gathered, for 
his career as ^^a gay old bird^^; but even in the rebuk- 
ing glance which Dr. Theophilus now bent upon him, 
I read the recognition that the president of the Great 
South Midland and Atlantic Railroad must be dosed 
more sparingly than other men. Under his loose, puffy 
chin he wore a loose, puffy tie of a magenta shade, 
in the midst of which a single black pearl reposed; 
and when he turned his head, the creases in his neck 
looked like white cords sunk deep in the scarlet flesh. 

^^There^s no use, Theophilus, I canT stand it,^^ he 
protested. Delilah, bring me a sip of whiskey to put 
a taste in my mouth. 

^‘No whiskey, Delilah, not a drop,’' commanded 
the doctor sternly. ^Ht’s the result of your own im- 
prudence, George, and you’ve got to pay for it. You’ve 
been eating strawberries, and I told you not to touch 
one with a ten-foot pole.” 


IN WHICH I GROW UP 


129 


^'You didn^t say a word about strawberry short- 
cake/^ rejoined the General, like a guilty child, '^and 
this attack is due to an entirely different cause. I 
dined at the Blands^ on Sunday, and Miss Mitty gave 
me mint sauce on my lamb. I never could abide mint 
sauce. 

Taking out his prescription book the doctor wrote 
down a prescription in a single word, which looked 
ominously like ^'calomer^ from a distance. 

^'How did Miss Matoaca seem?^' he asked, while 
Robin, the old pointer, came and sniffed at my ankles, 
and I thought of Samuel, sleeping under a flower 
bed in the doctor ^s garden. ^^She has a touch of 
malaria, and I ordered her three grains of quinine 
every morning. 

A purple flush mounted to the Generals face, which, 
if I could have read it by the light of history, would 
have explained the scornful flattery in his attitude 
toward ‘^the sex” It was easy to catch the personal 
note in his piquant allusions to ^Hhe ladies,^^ though 
an instinct, which he would probably have called a 
principle, kept them always within the bounds of 
politeness. Later I was to learn that Miss Matoaca 
had been the most ardent, if by no means the only, 
romance of his youth ; and that because of some head- 
strong and indelicate opinions of hers on the subject of 
masculine morals, she had, when confronted with 
tangible proofs of the Generals airy wanderings, hope- 
lessly severed the engagement within a few weeks of 
the marriage. To a gay young bird the prospect of a 
storm in a nest had been far from attractive ; and after 
a fierce quarrel, he had started dizzily down the descent 


130 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


of his bachelorhood, while she had folded her trembling 
wings and retired into the shadow. That Miss Matoac^ 
possessed ^^headstrong opinions, even the doctor, 
with all his gallantry, would have been the last to deny. 
^^She seems to think men are made just like women, 
he remarked now, wonderingly, ^^but, oh, Lord, they 
ain’t ! ” 

^‘1 tell you it’s those outlandish heathen notions of 
hers that are driving us all crazy!” exclaimed the 
General, making a face as he had done over his glass 
of water. Talks about taxes without representation 
exactly as if she were a man and had rights ! What 
rights does a woman want, anyway, I’d like to know, 
except the right to a husband ? They all ought to have 
husbands — God knows I’m not denying them that ! 
— the state ought to see to it. But rights ! Pshaw ! 
They’ll get so presently they won’t know how to bear 
their wrongs with dignity. And I tell you, doctor, 
if there’s a more edifying sight than a woman bearing 
her wrongs beautifully, I’ve never seen it. Why, I 
remember my Cousin Jenny Tyler — you know she 
married that scamp who used to drink and throw his 
boots at her. AVhat do you do, Jenny?’ I asked, in 
a boiling rage, when she told me, and I never saw a 
woman look more like an angel than she did when she 
answered, 'I pick them up.’ Why, she made me cry, 
sir ; that’s the sort of woman that makes a man want 
to marry.” 

dare say you’re right,” sighed the doctor, ''but 
Miss Matoaca is made of a different stuff. I can’t 
imagine her picking up any man’s boots, George.” 

"No more can I,” retorted the General, "it serves her 


IN WHICH I GROW UP 


131 


right that she never got a husband. No gentleman 
wants to throw his boots at his wife, but, by Jove, he 
likes to feel that if he were ever to do such a thing, she’d 
be the kind that would pick them up. He doesn’t 
want to think everlastingly that he’s got to walk a 
chalk-line or catch a flea in his ear. Now, what do you 
suppose Miss Matoaca said to me on Sunday? We 
were talking of Tom Frost’s running for governor, and 
she said she hoped he wouldn’t be elected because he 
led an impure life. An impure life ! Will you tell me 
what business it is of an unmarried lady’s whether a 
man leads an impure life or not? It isn’t ladylike 
' — I’ll be damned if it is ! I could see that Miss Mitty 
blushed for her. What’s the world coming to, I ask, 
when a maiden lady isn’t ashamed to know that a 
man leads an impure life?” 

He raged softly, and I could see that Dr. Theophilus 
was growing sterner over his flippancy. 

'^Well, you’re a gay old bird, George,” he remarked, 
'^and I dare say you think me something of a prude.” 

Tearing off a leaf from his prescription book, he laid 
it on the table, and held out his hand. Then he stood 
for a minute with his eyes on Robin, who was marching 
stiffly round a bed of red geraniums near the gate. 
^Ht’s time to go,” he added; ^Hhat old dog of mine is 
getting ready to root up your geraniums.” 

You’d better keep a cat,” observed the General, 
'Hhey do less damage.” 

Young George and I, who had stood in the shadow of 
the wistaria awaiting the doctor’s departure, came 
forward now, and I made my awkward bow to the 
General’s bandaged foot. 


132 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^Any relative of Jack Starr he enquired affably 
as he shook my hand. 

I towered so conspicuously above him, while I stood 
there with my hat in my hand, that I was for a mo- 
ment embarrassed by my mere physical advantages. 

^^No, sir, not that I ever heard of,^^ I answered. 

^^Then you ought to be thankful, he returned 
peevishly, ^'for the first time I ever met the fellow he 
deliberately trod on my toe — deliberately, sir. And 
now theyhe wanting to nominate him for governor — 
but I say they shan^t do it. IVe no idea of allowing it. 
It’s utterly out of the question.” 

Uncle George, IVe brought Ben to see your li- 
brary,” interrupted young George at my elbow. 

^^Library, eh? Are you going to be a lawyer?” 
demanded the General. 

I shook my head. 

'^A preacher?” in a more reverent voice. 

'^No, sir, I’m in the Old Dominion Tobacco Works. 
You got me my first job.” 

got you your job — did I? Then you’re the 
young chap that discovered that blend for smoking. 
I told Bob you ought to have a royalty on that. Did 
he give it to you?” 

“I’m to have ten per cent of the sales, sir. They’ve 
just begun.” 

“Well, hold on to it — it’s a good blend. I tried it. 
And when you get your ten per cent, put it into the Old 
South Chemical Company, if you want to grow rich. 
It isn’t everybody I’d give that tip to, but I like the 
looks of you. How tall are you ? ” 

“Six feet one in my stockings.” 


IN WHICH I GROW UP 


133 


^^Well, I wouldn’t grow any more. You’re all right, 
if you can only manage to keep your hands and feet 
down. You’ve got good eyes and a good jaw, and it’s 
the jaw that tells the man. Now, that’s the trouble 
with that Jack Starr they want to nominate for gov- 
ernor. He lacks jaw. ^ You can’t make a governor 
out of a fellow who hasn’t jaw,’ that’s what I said. 
And besides, he deliberately trod on my toe the first 
time I ever met him. Didn’t know it was gouty, eh? 
What right has he got, I asked, to suppose that any 
gentleman’s toe isn’t gouty?” 

His lower lip protruded angrily, and he sat staring 
into his glass of water with an enquiring and sulky 
look. It is no small tribute to my capacity for hero- 
worship to say that it survived even this nearer ap- 
proach to the gouty presence of my divinity. But 
the glamour of success — the only glamour that shines 
without borrowed light in the hard, dry atmosphere 
of the workaday world — still hung around him ; and 
his very dissipations — yes, even his fleshly frailties — 
reflected, for the moment at least, a romantic interest. 
I began to wonder if certain moral weaknesses were, 
indeed, the inevitable attributes of the great man, and 
there shot into my mind, with a youthful folly of re- 
.gret, the memory of a drink I had declined that morn- 
ing, and of a pretty maiden at the Old Market whom I 
might have kissed and did not. Was the doctor’s 
teaching wrong, after all, and had his virtues made 
him a failure in life, while the General’s vices had but 
helped him to his success? I was very young, and I 
had not yet reached the age when I could perceive the 
expediency of the path of virtue unless in the end it 


134 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


bordered on pleasant places. '^The General is a bigger 
man than the doctor/^ I thought, half angrily, ‘^and 
yet the General will be a gay old bird as long as the 
gout permits him to hobble. And it seemed to me 
suddenly that the moral order, on which the doctor 
loved to dilate, had gone topsy-turvy while I stood on 
the Generals porch. As if reading my thoughts the 
great man looked up at me, with his roguish twinkle. 

^^Now there’s Theophilus!” he observed. '^What- 
ever you are, sir, don’t be a damned mollycoddle.” 

Young George, plucking persistently at my sleeve, 
drew me at last out of the presence and into the house, 
where I smelt the fragrance of strawberries, freshly 
gathered. 

"Here’re the books,” said George, leading me to 
the door of a long room, filled with rosewood book- 
cases and family portraits of departed Bolingbrokes. 
Then as I was about to cross the threshold, the sound 
of a bright voice speaking to the General on the porch 
caused me to stop short, and stand holding my breath 
in the hall. 

"Good afternoon. General! You look as if you 
needed exercise.” 

"Exercise, indeed! Do you take me for your age, 
you minx?” 

"Oh, come, General ! You aren’t old — you’re lazy.” 

By this time George and I had edged nearer the 
porch, and even before he breathed her name in a 
whisper, I knew in the instant that her sparkling 
glance ran over me, that she was my little girl of the 
red shoes just budding into womanhood. She was 
standing in a square patch of sunlight, midway be- 


IN WHICH I GROW UP 


135 


tween the steps and a bed of red geraniums near the 
gate, and her dress of some thin white material was 
blown closely against the curves of her bosom and 
her rounded hips. Over her broad white forehead, 
with its heavily arched black eyebrows, the mass of 
her pale brown hair spread in the strong breeze and 
stood out like the wings of a bird in riight, and this 
gave her whole, finely poised figure a swift and ex- 
pectant look, as of one who is swept forward by some 
radiant impulse. Her face, too, had this same ardent 
expression; I saw it in her eyes, which fixed me the 
next moment with her starry and friendly gaze; in 
her very full red lips that broke the pure outline of 
her features; and in her strong, square chin held 
always a little upward with a proud and impatient 
carriage. So vivid was my first glimpse of her, that 
for a single instant I wondered if the radiance in her 
figure was not produced by some fleeting accident of 
light and shadow. When I knew her better I learned 
that this quality of brightness belonged neither to the 
mind nor to an edge of light, but to the face itself — 
to some peculiar mingling of clear grey with intense 
darkness in her brow and eyes. 

As she stood there chatting gayly with the General, 
young George eyed her from the darkened hall with 
a glance in which I read, when I turned to him, a 
touch of his uncle’s playful masculine superiority. 

'^She’ll be a stunner, if she doesn’t get too big,” 
he observed. don’t like big girls — do you?” 

Then as I made no rejoinder, he added after a 
moment, ^^Do you think her mouth spoils her? 
Aunt Hatty calls her mouth coarsa” 


136 THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

^^Coarse?'^ I echoed angrily. '^What does she 
mean by coarse 

^^Oh, too red and too full. She says a lady’s mouth 
ought to be a delicate bow.” 

never saw a delicate bow — ” 

^^No more did I — but I’d call Sally a regular 
stunner now, mouth and all. Sally!” he broke out 
suddenly, and stepped out on the porch. '^I’ll go 
riding with you some day,” he said, ^^if you want 
me.” 

She laughed up at him. '"But I don’t want you.” 

^^You wanted me bad enough a year ago.” 

^^That was a year ago.” 

Running hurriedly down the steps, he stood talk- 
ing to her beside the bed of scarlet geraniums, while 
I felt a burning embarrassment pervade my body to 
the very palms of my hands. 

Where’s the other fellow, George?” called the 
General, suddenly. What’s become of him?” 

As he turned his head in my direction, I left the 
hall, and came out upon the porch, acutely conscious, 
all the time, that there was too much of me, that my 
hands and feet got in my way, that I ought to have 
put on a different shirt in the afternoon. 

Sally was stooping over to snip off the head of a 
geranium, and when she looked up the next instant, 
with her hair blown back from her forehead, her 
starry, expectant gaze rested full on my own. 

'^Why, it’s the boy I used to know,” she exclaimed^ 
moving toward me. ^^Boy, how do you do?” 

She put out her hand, and as I took it in mine, I 
saw for the first time that she was a large girl for 


IN WHICH I GROW UP 


137 


her age, and would be a large woman. Her figure 
was already ripening under her thin white gown, but 
her hands and feet were still those of a child, and 
moulded, I saw, with that peculiar delicacy, which, 
I had learned from the doctor, was the distinguishing 
characteristic of the Virginian aristocracy. 

'Ht is a long time since — since I saw you,^^ she 
remarked in a cordial voice. 

^Ht’s been eight years,^’ I answered. I wonder that 
you remember me.^' 

^'Oh, I never forget. And besides, if I didn^t see 
you for eight years more, I should still recognise you 
by your eyes. There arenT many boys,’' she said 
merrily, ^^who have eyes like a blue-eyed collie’s.” 

With this she turned from me to George, and after 
a word or two to the General, and a nod in my direc- 
tion, they passed through the gate, and went slowly 
along the street, her pale brown hair still blown like 
a bird’s wing behind her. 

The General’s sister, young George’s Aunt Hatty, a 
severe little lady, with a very flat figure, had come out 
on the porch, and was offering her brother a dose of 
^medicine. 

^'A good girl, Hatty,” remarked the great man, in 
an affable mood. ^^A little too much of her Aunt 
Matoaca’s spirit for a wife, but a very good girl, as 
long as you ain’t married to her.” 

^^She would be handsome, George, except for her 
mouth. It’s a pity her mouth spoils her.” 

What’s the matter with her mouth? I haven’t 
got your eyesight, Hatty, but it appears a perfectly 
good mouth to me.” 


138 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^'That^s because you have naturally coarse tastes, 
George. A lady^s mouth should be a delicate bow.^^ 
A delicate bow, indeed ! Those full, sensitive lips 
that showed like a splash of carmine in the clear 
pallor of her face ! As I walked home under the 
broad, green leaves of the sycamores, I remembered 
the features of the pretty maiden at the Old Market, 
and they appeared to me suddenly divested of all 
beauty. It was as if a bright beam of sunshine had 
fallen on a blaze of artificial light, and extinguished it 
forever. Henceforth I should move straight toward a 
single love, as I had already begun to move straight 
toward a single ambition. 


CHAPTER XI 


IN WHICH I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL 

My first successful speculation was made in my 
twenty-first year with five hundred dollars paid to me 
by Bob Brackett when the Nectar blend had been 
six months on the market. By the Generals advice 
I put the money in the Old South Chemical Company, 
and selling out a little later at high profits, I imme- 
diately reinvested. As the years went by, that smok- 
ing mixture, discovered almost by accident in an idle 
moment, began to yield me considerably larger checks 
twice a year; and twice a year, with the GeneraPs 
enthusiastic assistance, I went in for a modest specu- 
lation from which I hoped sometime to reap a for- 
tune. When I was twenty-five, a temporary depres- 
sion in the market gave me the opportunity which, as 
Dr. Theophilus had informed me almost daily for ten 
years, waits always around the corner for the man 
who walks quickly.^' I put everything I owned into 
copper mining stock, then selling very low, and a 
year later when the copper trade recovered quickly 
and grew active, I rushed to the General and enquired 
breathlessly if I must sell out. 

^^Hold on and await developments,^^ he replied from 
his wicker chair over his bandaged foot, ^^and remem- 
ber that the successful speculator is the man who 
always runs in the other direction from the crowd. 

139 


140 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


When you see people sitting still, you^d better get up, 
and when you see them begin to get up, you^d better 
sit still. Fortune's a woman, you know; don^t try to 
flirt with her, but at the same time don’t throw your 
boots at her head.” 

Five years before I had left the tobacco factory to 
go into the General’s office, and my days were spent 
now, absorbed and alert, beside the chair in which 
he sat, coolly playing his big game of chess, and con- 
trolling a railroad. He was in his day the strongest 
financier in the South, and he taught me my lesson. 
Tireless, sleepless, throbbing with a fever that was 
like the fever of love, I studied at his side every move- 
ment of the mar]^et, I weighed every word he uttered, 
I watched every stroke of his stout cork-handled pen. 
An infallible judge of men, my intimate knowledge 
soon taught me that it was by judging men, not 
things, he had won his success. Learn men, learn 
men, learn men,” he would repeat in one of his fre- 
quent losses of temper. Everything rests on a man, 
and the way to know the thing is to know the man.” 

That’s why I’m learning you. General,” I once 
replied, as he hobbled out of his office on my arm. 

^^Oh, I know, I know,” he retorted with his sly 
chuckle. ‘^You are letting me lean on you now be- 
cause you think the time will come when you can 
throw me aside and stand up by yourself. It’s age 
and youth, my boy, age and youth.” 

He sighed wearily, and looking at him I saw for the 
first time that he was growing old. 

''Well, you’ve stood straight enough in your day, 
sir,” I answered. 


I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL 


141 


“Oh, IVe had my youth, and I shan^t begin to put 
on a long face because IVe lost it. I didn^t have 
your stature, Ben, but I had a pretty fair middling- 
size one of my own. They used to say of me that I 
had an eye for the big chance, and that's a thing a 
man's got to be born with. To see big you've got to 
be big, and that's what I like about you — you ain't 
busy looking for specks." 

'^If I can only become as big a man as you. General, 
I shall be content." 

'^No, you won't, no, you won't, don't stop at me. 
Already they are beginning to call you my ^wonderful 
boy,' you know. 'I like that wonderful boy of yours, 
George,' Jessoms said to me only last night at the 
club. You know Jessoms — don't you ? He's presi- 
dent of the Union Bank." 

Yes, I talked to him for two solid hours yesterday." 

^^He told me so, and I said to him: ^By Jove, 
you're right, Jessoms, and that boy's got a future 
ahead of him if he doesn't swell.' Now that's the 
Gospel truth, Ben, and all the body you've got ain't 
going to save you if you don't keep your head. If 
you ever feel it beginning to swell, you step outside 
and put it under a pump, that's the best thing I know 
of. How old are you?" 

Twenty-six." 

^^And you've got fifty thousand dollars already?" 

'^Thanks to you, sir." 

^^So you ain't swelled yet. Well, I've given you 
six years of hard training, and I made it all the blamed 
harder because I liked you. You've got the look of 
success about you, I've seen enough of it to know it. 


142 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


They used to say of me in Washington that I could 
sit in my office chair and overlook a line of men and 
spot every last one of them that was going to get on. 
I never went wrong but once, and that was because 
the poor devil began to swell and thought he was as 
big as his own shadow. But if the look^s there, I see 
it — it’s something in the eye and the jaw, and the 
grip of the hands that nobody can give you except 
God Almighty — and by George, it turns me into a 
downright heathen and makes me believe in fate. 
When a man has that something in the eye and in the 
jaw and in the grip of the hand, there ain’t enough 
devils in the universe to keep him from coming out on 
top at the last. He may go under, but he won’t stay 
under — no, sir, not if they pile all the bu’sted stocks 
in the market on top his shoulders.” 

'^Anyway, you’ve started me rolling. General, 
whether I spin on or come to a dead stop.” 

^^Then remember,” he retorted slyly, as we parted, 
^Hhat my earnest advice to a young man starting ir 
business is — don’t begin to swell !” 

There was small danger of that, I thought, as I 
went on alone with my vision of the Great South 
Midland and Atlantic Railroad. From my childhood 
I had seen the big road, as I saw it to-day, sweeping 
in a bright track over the entire South, lengthening, 
branching, winding away toward the distant horizon, 
girdling the cotton fields, the rice fields, and the coal 
fields, like a protecting arm. One by one, I saw now, 
the small adjunct lines absorbed by the main system, 
until in the whole South only the Great South Mid- 
land and Atlantic would be left. To dominate that 


I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL 


143 


living organism, to control, in my turn, that splendid 
liberator of a people^s resources, this was still the 
inaccessible hope upon which I had fixed my heart. 

In my room I found young George Bolingbroke, 
who had been waiting, as he at once informed me, 
good half an hour.’’ 

say, Ben,” he broke out the next minute, ^'why 
don’t you get the housemaid to tie your cravats? 
She’d do it a long sight better. Are your fingers all 
thumbs?” 

^^They must be,” I replied with a humility I had 
never assumed before the General, can’t do the 
thing properly to save my life.” 

wonder it doesn’t give you a common look,” 
he remarked dispassionately, while I winced at the 
word, ^^but somehow it only makes you appear su- 
perior to such trifles, like a giant gazing over mole- 
hills at a mountain. It’s your size, I reckon, but 
you’re the kind of chap who can put on a turned- 
down collar with your evening clothes, or a tie 
that’s been twisted through a wringer, and not look 
ridiculous. It’s the rest of us that seem fops be- 
cause we’re properly dressed.” 

^^I’d prefer to wear the right thing, you know,” 
I returned, crestfallen. 

^^You never will. Anybody might as well expect 
a mountain to put forth rose-bushes instead of pine. 
It suits you, somehow, like your hair, which would 
make the rest of us look a regular guy. But I’m for- 
getting my mission. I’ve brought you an invitation 
to a party.” 

'^What on earth should I do at a party?” 


144 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^Look pleasant. Did I take you to Miss Lessie 
Belks dancing class for nothing? and were you put 
through the steps of the Highland Fling in vain?^^ 
wasnH put through, I never learned. 

^^Well, you kicked at it anyway. I say, is all your 
pirouetting to be done with stocks? Are you going 
to pass away in ignorance of polite society and the 
manners of the ladies?^’ 

^^When I make a fortune, perhaps — 

'^Perhaps is always too late. To-morrow is better.^’ 
Where is the party ?^^ 

^^The Blands are giving it. Uncle George was 
puffing and blowing about you when we dined there 
last Sunday, and Sally Mickleborough told me to bring 
you to her party on Wednesday night.’^ 

Rising hurriedly I walked away from young George 
to the fireplace. A mist was before my eyes, I smelt 
again the scent of wallflowers, and I saw in a dream 
the old grey house, with its delicate lace curtains 
parted from the small square window-panes as if a 
face looked out on the crooked pavement. 

^H^ll go, George,^^ I said, wheeling about, ^4f you^ll 
pledge yourself that I go properly dressed. 

^^Done,’^ he responded, with his unfailing ami- 
ability. ^H’ll tie your cravat myself; and thank your 
stars, Ben, that whatever you are, you canT be little^ 
for that^s the unforgivable sin in Sally^s eyes.’^ 

On Wednesday night he proved as good as his> 
promise, and when nine o^clock struck, it found me, 
in irreproachable evening clothes, following him down 
Franklin Street, to the old house, where a softly 
coloured light streamed through the windows and lay 


I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL 


145 


in a rosy pool under the sycamores. All day I had 
been very nervous. At the moment when I was 
reading telegrams for the General, I had suddenly 
remembered that I possessed no gloves suitable to be 
worn at my first party, and I had committed so many 
blunders that the great man had roared the word 
^^Swelled!’^ in a furious tone. Now, however, when 
the sound of a waltz, played softly on stringed instru- 
ments, fell on my ears, my nervousness departed as 
quickly as it had come. The big mahogany doors 
swung open before us, and as I passed with George, 
into the brilliantly lighted hall, where the perfume of 
roses filled the air, I managed to move, if not with 
grace, at least with the necessary dignity of an invited 
guest. The lamps, placed here and there amid feathery 
palm branches, glowed under pink shades like enor- 
mous roses in full bloom, and up and down the wide 
staircase, carpeted in white, a number of pretty girls 
tripped under trailing garlands of Southern smilax. 
As we entered the door on the right, I saw Miss 
Mitty and Miss Matoaca, standing very erect in their 
black brocades and old lace, with outstretched hands 
and constantly smiling lips. 

George presented me, with the slightly formal man- 
ner which seemed appropriate to the occasion. I had 
held the little hand of each lady for a minute in my 
own, and had looked once into each pair of brightly 
shining eyes, when my glance, dropping from theirs, 
flew straight as a bird to Sally Mickleborough, who 
stood talking animatedly to an elderly gentleman with 
grey side-whiskers and a pleasant laugh. She was 
dressed all in white, and her pale brown hair, which I 


146 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


had last seen flying like the wing of a bird, was now 
braided and wound in a wreath about her head. As 
the elderly gentleman bowed and passed on, she lifted 
her eyes, and her starry, expectant gaze rested full on 
my face. 

Between us there stretched an expanse of polished 
floor, in which the pink-shaded lamps and the nodding 
roses were mirrored as in a pool. Around us there was 
the music of stringed instruments, playing a waltz 
softly; the sound, too, of many voices, now laughing, 
now whispering; of Miss Mitty^s repeated ^^It was so 
good of you to come ; of Miss Matoaca^s gently mur- 
mured ^^We are so glad to have you with us^^; of Dr. 
Theophilus’s ^^You grow younger every day, ladies. 
Will you dance to-night of General Bolingbroke^s 
never missed an opportunity of coming to you in 
my life, ma^am’^; of a confused chorus of girlish mur- 
murs, of youthful merriment. 

For one delirious instant it seemed to me that if I 
stepped on the shining floor, I should go down as on a 
frozen pool. Then her look summoned me, and as I 
drew nearer she held out her hand and stood waiting. 
There was a white rose in her wreath of plaits, and 
when I bent to speak to her the fragrance floated about 
me. 

^'Do you still remember me because of the blue-eyed 
collie I asked, for it was all I could think of. 

Her firm square chin was tilted a little upward, and 
as she smiled at me, her thick black eyebrows were 
raised in the old childish expression of charming arch- 
ness. It was the face of an idea rather than the face 
of a woman, and the power, the humour, the radiant 


I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL 147 

energy in her look, appeared to divide her, as by an 
immeasurable distance, from the pretty girls of her 
own age among whom she stood. She seemed at once 
older and younger than her companions — older by 
some deeper and sadder knowledge of life, younger 
because of the peculiar buoyancy with which she 
moved and spoke. As I looked at her mouth, very 
full, of an almost violent red, and tremulous with ex- 
pression, I remembered Miss Hatty's ^'delicate bow" 
with an odd feeling of anger. 

^Ht has been a long time, but I haven’t forgotten 
you, Ben Starr," she said. 

^^Do you remember the night of the storm and the 
cup of milk you wouldn’t drink?" 

^^How horrid I was! And the geranium you gave 
me?" 

^^And the churchyard and the red shoes and 
Samuel?" 

^^Poor Samuel. I can’t have any dogs now. Aunt 
Mitty doesn’t like them — " 

Some one came up to speak to her, and while I bowed 
awkwardly and turned away, I saw her gaze looking 
back at me from the roses and the pink-shaded lamps. 
A touch on my arm brought the face of young George 
between me and my ecstatic visions. 

say, Ben, there’s an awfully pretty girl over there 
I want you to waltz with — Bessy Dandridge." 

In spite of my protest he led me the next instant to 
a slim figure in pink tarlatan, with a crown of azaleas, 
who sat in one corner between two very stout ladies. 
As I approached, the stout ladies smiled at me benignly 
hiding suppressed yawns behind feather fans. Miss 


148 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Dandridge was, as George said, awfully pretty,’^ with 
large shallow eyes of pale blue, an insipid mouth, and 
a shy little smile that looked as if she had put it on 
with her crown of azaleas and would take it off again 
and lay it away in her bureau drawer when the party 
was over. 

^'Get up and dance, dear,^^ urged one of the stout 
ladies sleepily, ^^we ought to have come earlier.’^ 

^^The girls look very well,’^ remarked the other, sud- 
denly alert and interested, ^^but I don^t like this new 
fashion of wearing the hair. Sally Mickleborough is 
handsome, though it’s a pity she takes so much after 
her father.” 

My arm was already around the pink tarlatan waist 
of my partner, the crown of azaleas had brushed my 
shoulder like a gentle caress, and I had whirled half- 
way down the room in triumphant agony, when a float- 
ing phrase uttered in a girlish voice entered my ears 
and carried confusion into my brain. 

‘^Get out of the way. Doesn’t Bessy look for all the 
world like a rose-bush uprooted by a whirlwind?” 

I caught the words as I went, and they proved too 
much for the trembling balance of my self-confldence. 
My strained gaze, fixed on the glassy surface beneath 
my feet, plunged suddenly downward amid the re- 
flected roses and lamps. The music went wild and 
out of tune on the air. My blood beat violently in my 
pulses, I made a single false step, tripped over a flounce 
of pink tarlatan, which seemed to shriek as I went 
down, and the next instant my partner and I were flat 
on the polished floor, clutching desperately for support 
at the mirrored roses beneath. 


I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL 


149 


The wreck lasted only a minute. A single sup- 
pressed titter fell on my ears, and was instantly 
checked. I looked up in time to see a smile freeze on 
Miss Mitty^s face, and melt immediately into an ex- 
pression of sympathy. The pretty girl, with the 
crown of azalea hanging awry on her flaxen tresses, 
and her flounce of pink tarlatan held disconsolately in 
her hand, looked for one dreadful instant as if she 
were about to burst into tears. A few dancers had 
stopped and gathered sympathetically around us, but 
the rest were happily whirling on, while the music, after 
a piercing crescendo, came breathlessly to a pause 
amid a silence that I felt to be far louder than sound. 
The perspiration, forced out by inward agony, stood 
in drops on my forehead, and as I wiped it away, I said 
almost defiantly : — 

'^It was the fault of George Bolingbroke. I told 
him I didn^t know how to dance. 

think I^d better go home,^^ murmured the heroine 
of the disaster, catching her lower lip in her teeth to 
bite back a sob, wonder where mamma can be?^’ 
^^Here, dear,’^ responded a commiserating voice, and 
I was about to turn away in disgrace without a further 
apology, when the little circle around us divided with 
a flutter, and Sally appeared, leaning on the arm of a 
youth with bulging eyes and a lantern jaw. 

Go home, Bessy ? Why, how silly ! she exclaimed, 
and her energetic voice seemed suddenly to dominate 
the situation. ^^It wasn^t so many years ago, I^m sure, 
that you used to tumble for the pleasure of it. Here, 
let me pin on your crown, and then run straight upstairs 
to the red room and get mammy to mend your flounce. 


150 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


It won^t take her a minute. There, now, youVe all 
the prettier for a high colour.^^ 

When she had pushed Bessy across the threshold 
with her small, strong hands, she turned to me, laugh- 
ing a little, and slipped her arm into mine with the air 
of a young queen bestowing a favour. 

^^It^s just as well, Ben Starr,^’ she said, ^^that you’re 
engaged to me for this dance, and not to a timid lady.” 

It wasn’t my dance, I knew; in fact, I had not 
had sufficient boldness to ask her for one, and I dis- 
covered the next minute, when she sent away rather 
impatiently a youth who approached, that she had 
taken such glorious possession merely from some in- 
domitable instinct to give people pleasure. 

Shall we sit down and talk a little over there under 
the smilax?” she asked, ^'or would you rather dance? 
If you’d like to dance,” she added with a sparkle in her 
face, ^^I am not afraid.” 

Well, I am,” I retorted, ^^I shall never dance again.” 

^^How serious that sounds — but since you’ve made 
the resolution I hope you’ll keep it. I like things to 
be kept.” 

There’s no chance of my breaking it. I never made 
but one other solemn vow in my life.” 

^^And you’ve kept that?” 

^^I am keeping it now.” 

She sat down, arranging her white draperies under 
the festoons of smilax, her left hand, from which a big 
feather fan drooped, resting on her knees, her small, 
white-slippered foot moving to the sound of the waltz. 

^^Was it a vow not to grow any more?” she asked 
with a soft laugh. 


I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL 


151 


was/^ I leaned toward her and the fragrance of 
the white rose, drooping a little in her wreath of plaits, 
filled my nostrils, ^Hhat I would not stay common/' 

Her lashes, which had been lowered, were raised 
suddenly, and I met her eyes. ^^0 Ben Starr, Ben 
Starr," she said, ^^how well you have kept it !" 

“Do you remember the stormy night when you would 
not let me take your wet cap because I was a common 
boy?" 

“How hateful I must have been !" 

“On that night I determined that I would not grow 
up to be a common man. That was why I ran away, 
that was why I went into the tobacco factory, that 
was why I started to learn Johnson's Dictionary by 
heart — why I drudged over my Latin, why I went 
into stocks, why — " 

Her eyes had not left my face, but unfurling the big 
feather fan, she waved it slowly between us. I, who 
had, in the words of Dr. Theophilus, “no small wits in 
my head," who could stand, dumb and a clown, in a 
ballroom, who could even trip up my partner, had 
found words that could arrest the gaze of the woman 
before me. To talk at all I must talk of big things, 
and it was of big things that I now spoke — of pov- 
erty, of struggle, of failure, of aspiration. My mind, 
like my body, was not rounded to the lighter graces, 
the rippling surface, th^t society requires. In my 
everyday clothes, among men, I was at no loss for 
words, but the high collar and the correctly tied cravat 
I wore seemed to strangle my throat, until those 
starry eyes, seeking big things also, had looked into 
mine. Then I forgot my fruitless efforts at conversa- 


152 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


tion, I forgot the height of my collar, the stiffness of 
my shirt, the size of my hands and my feet. I forgot 
that I was a plain man, and remembered only that I 
was a man. The merely social, the trivial, the com- 
monplace, dropped from my thoughts. My dignity, — 
the dignity that George Bolingbroke had called that 
of size, — was restored to me ; and beyond the rosy 
lights and the disturbing music, we stood a man and 
a woman together. Our consciousness had left the 
surface of life. We had become acutely aware of each 
other and aware, too, of the silence in which our eyes 
wavered and met. 

^^That was why I starved and sweated and drudged 
and longed, I added, while her fan waved with 
its large, slow movement between us, ^^that was 
why — 

Her lips parted, she leaned slightly forward, and I 
saw in her face what I had never seen in the face of a 
woman before — the bloom of a soul. 

^^And youVe done this all your life?^^ 

Since that stormy evening.” 

You have won — already you have won — ” 

''Not yet. I am beginning and I may win in the 
end if I keep steady, if I donT lose my head. I shall 
win in the end — perhaps — ” 

"You will win what?” 

"A fortune it may be, or it may be even the thing 
that has made the fortune, seem worth the having.” 

"And that is?” she asked simply. 

"It is too long a story. Some day, if you will listen, 
I may tell you, but not now — ” 

The dance stopped, she rose to her feet, and George 


I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL 


153 


Bolingbroke, rushing excitedly to where we stood, 
claimed the coming Virginia reel as his own. 

^^Some day you shall tell me the long story, Ben 
Starr/ ^ she said, as she gave me her hand. 

I watched her take her place in the Virginia reel, 
watched the dance begin, watched her full, womanly 
figure, in its soft white draperies, glide between the 
lines, with her head held high, her hand in George 
Bolingbroke^ s, her white slippers skimming the polished 
floor. Then turning away, I walked slowly down the 
length of the two drawing-rooms, and said ^^Good- 
night to Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca near the 
door. As I passed into the hall, I heard a woman^s 
voice murmur distinctly: — 

^^Yes, he is a magnificent animal, but he has no 
social manner.^' 


CHAPTER XII 


I WALK INTO THE COUNTRY AND MEET WITH AN 
ADVENTURE 

My sleep that night was broken by dreams of roses 
and pink-shaded lamps. For the first time in my life 
my brain and body alike refused rest, and the one was 
illumined as by the rosy glow of a flame, while the 
other was scorched by a fever which kept me tossing 
sleeplessly between Mrs. Clay^s lavender-scented sheets. 
At last when the sun rose, I got out of bed, and hurriedly 
dressing, went up Franklin Street, and turned into one 
of the straight country roads which led through bronzed 
levels of broomsedge. Eastward the sun was plough- 
ing a purple furrow across the sky, and toward the 
south a single golden cloud hung over some thin 
stretches of pine. The ghost of a moon, pale and 
watery, was riding low, after a night of high frolic, and 
as the young dawn grew stronger, I watched her melt 
gradually away like a face that one sees through smoke. 
The October wind, blowing with a biting edge over 
the broomsedge, bent the blood-red tops of the sumach 
like pointed flames toward the road. 

For me a new light shone on the landscape — a light 
that seemed to have its part in the high wind, in the 
waving broomsedge, and in the rising sun. For the 
first time since those old days in the churchyard I felt 
154 


I MEET WITH AN ADVENTURE 


155 


with every fibre of me, with every beat of my pulses, with 
every drop of my blood, that it was good to be alive 
— that it was worth while every bit of it. My starved 
boyhood, the drudgery in the tobacco factory, the 
breathless nights in the Old Market, the hours when, 
leaning over Johnson’s Dictionary, I had been obliged 
to pinch myself to keep wide awake — the squalor 
out of which I had come, and the future into which I 
was going — all these were a part to-day of this strange 
new ecstasy that sang in the wind and moved in the 
waving broomsedge. 

And through it all ran my thoughts : How fragrant the 
white rose was in her hair ! How tremulous her mouth ! 
Are her eyes grey or green, and is it only the heavy 
shadow of her lashes that makes them appear black at 
times, as if they changed colour with her thoughts? 
Is it possible that she could ever love me ? If I make 
a fortune will that bring me any nearer to her? Ob- 
scure as I am my cause is hopeless, but even if I were 
rich and powerful, should I ever dare to ascend the 
steps of that house where I had once delivered market- 
ing at the kitchen door?” 

The memory of the spring morning when I had first 
gone there with my basket on my arm returned to me, 
and I saw myself again as a ragged, barefooted boy 
resting beneath the silvery branches of the great syca- 
more. Even then I had dreamed of her; all through 
my life the thought of her had run like* a thread of gold. 
I remembered her as she had stood in our little kitchen 
on that stormy October evening, holding her mop of a 
muff in her cold little hands, and looking back at me 
with her sparkling defiant gaze. Then she came to me 


156 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


in her red shoes, dancing over the coloured leaves in the 
churchyard, and a minute later, as she had knelt in 
the box-bordered path patiently building her houses 
of moss and stones. As a child she had stirred my 
imagination, as a woman she had filled and possessed 
my thoughts. Always I had seen her a little above, 
a little beyond, but still beckoning me on. 

The next instant my thoughts dropped back to the 
evening before, and I went over word for word every 
careless phrase she had spoken. Was she merely kind 
to the boor in her house ? or had there been a deeper 
meaning in her divine smile — in her suddenly lifted 
eyes? ^^0 Ben Starr, you have won!^’ she had said, 
and had the thrill in her voice, the tremor of her bosom 
under its fall of lace, meant that her heart was touched ? 
Modest or humble I had never been. The will to fight 
— the exaggerated self-importance, the overweening 
pride of the strong man who has made his way by buf- 
feting obstacles, were all mine ; and yet, walking there 
that morning in the high wind between the rolling 
broomsedge and the blood-red sumach, I was aware 
again of the boyish timidity with which I had carried 
my market basket so many years ago to her kitchen 
doorstep. She had said of me last night that I was no 
longer common.^' Was that because she had read in 
my glance that I had kept myself pure for her sake ? — 
that for her sake I had made myself strong to resist 
as well as to achieve? Would Miss Mitty^s or Miss 
Matoaca^s verdict, I wondered, have been as merciful, 
as large as hers? '^A magnificent animal, but with no 
social manner,’^ the voice had said of me, and the words 
burned now, hot with shame, in my memory. The 


I MEET WITH AN ADVENTURE 


157 


recollection of my fall in the dance, of the crying lips 
of the pretty girl in pink tarlatan, while she stood hold- 
ing her ruined flounce, became positive agony. What 
did she think of my boorishness? Was I, for her also, 
merely a magnificent animal? Had she noticed how 
ill at ease I felt in my evening clothes? 0 young 
Love, young Love, your sharpest torments are not 
with arrows, but with pin pricks ! 

A trailing blackberry vine, running like a crimson 
vein close to the earth, caught my foot, and I stooped 
for a minute. When I looked up she was standing 
clear against the reflected light of the sunrise, where 
a low hill rose above the stretches of broomsedge. Her 
sorrel mare was beside her, licking contentedly at a 
bright branch of sassafras ; and I saw that she had evi- 
dently dismounted but the moment before. As I ap- 
proached, she fastened her riding skirt above her high 
boots, and kneeling down on the dusty roadside, lifted 
the mare^s foot and examined it with searching and 
anxious eyes. Her three-cornered riding hat had 
slipped to her shoulders, where it was held by a broad 
black band of elastic, and I saw her charming head, 
with its wreath of plaits, defined against the golden 
cloud that hung above the thin stretch of pines. At 
my back the full sunrise broke, and when she turned 
toward me, her gaze was dazzled for a moment by the 
flood of light. 

'‘Let me have a look,^^ I said, as I reached her, "is 
the mare hurt?^’ 

" She went lame a few minutes ago. There^s a stone 
in her foot, but I can’t get it out.” 

"Perhaps I can.” 


158 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Rising from her knees, she yielded me her place, 
and then stood looking down on me while I removed 
the stone. 

She ^11 still limp, I fear, it was a bad one,^^ I said as 
I finished. 

Without replying, she turned from me and ran a few 
steps along the road, calling, '^Come, Dolly, in a caress- 
ing voice. The mare followed with difficulty, flinch- 
ing as she put her sore foot to the ground. 

^^See how it hurts her,^^ she said, coming back to me. 
have to lead her slowly — there^s no other way.^' 

^^Why not ride at a walk?^^ 

She shook her head. '^My feet are better than a 
lame horse. It^s not more than two miles anyway.^' 

^^And you danced all night?’' 

I hung the reins over my arm and we turned together, 
facing the sunrise. 

^^Yes, but the way to rest is to run out-of-doors. 
Are you often up with the dawn, too?” 

^^No, but I couldn’t sleep. The music got into my 
head.” 

^^Into mine also. But I often take a canter at sun- 
rise. It is my hour.” 

^^And this is your road?” 

^^Not always. I go different ways. This one I call 
the road-to-what-might-have-been because it turns off 
just as it reaches a glorious view.” 

^^Then don’t let’s travel it. I’d rather go with you 
on the road-to-what-is-to-be.” 

She looked at me steadily for a minute with arching 
brows. ^^I wonder why they say of you that you 
have no social amenities?” she observed mockingly. 


I MEET WITH AN ADVENTURE 


159 


haven^t. That isnT an amenity, it is a fact. To 
save my life I couldnT find a blessed thing to say last 
night to the little lady in pink tarlatan whose dress I 
tore.” 

^Toor Bessy!” she laughed softly, ''she vows she'll 
never waltz with you again.” 

"She's perfectly safe to vow it.” 

"Oh, yes, I remember, and I hope you won't dance 
any more. Do you know, I like you better out-of- 
doors.” 

"Out-of-doors?” 

"Well, the broomsedge is becoming to you. It 
seems your natural background somehow. Now it 
makes George Bolingbroke look frivolous.” 

"His natural background is the ballroom, and I'm 
not sure he hasn't the best of it. I can't live always in 
the broomsedge.” 

"Oh, it isn't only the broomsedge, though that goes 
admirably with your hair — it's the bigness, the space, 
the simplicity. You take up too much room among 
>amps and palms, you trip on a waxed floor, and 
down goes poor Bessy. But out here you are natural 
and at home. The sky sets off your head — and it's 
really very fine if you only knew it. Out here, with 
me, you are in your native element.” 

"Is that because you are my native element? Can 
you imagine poor Bessy fitting into the picture?” 

"To tell the truth I can't imagine poor Bessy fitting 
you at all. Her native element is pink tarlatan.” 

"And yours?” I demanded. 

"That you must find out for yourself.” A smile 
played on her face like an edge of light. 


160 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


'^The sunrise/^ I answered. 

'^Like you, I am sorry that I can’t be always in my 
proper setting,” she replied. 

^^You are always. The sunrise never leaves you.” 

Her brows arched merrily, and I saw the tiny scar 
I had remembered from childhood catch up the corner 
of her mouth with its provoking and irresistible trick 
of expression. 

^^Do you mean to tell me that you learned these 
gallantries in Johnson’s Dictionary?” she enquired, 
^^or have you taken other lessons from the General 
besides those in speculations?” 

I had got out of my starched shirt and my evening 
clothes, and the timidity of the ballroom had no part 
in me under the open sky. Johnson’s Dictionary 
wasn’t my only teacher,” I retorted, ^^nor was the 
General. At ten years of age I could recite the prosi- 
est speeches of Sir Charles Grandison.” 

'^Ah, that explains it. Well, I’m glad anyway you 
didn’t learn it from the General. He broke poor Aunt 
Matoaca’s heart, you know.” 

^^Then I hope he managed to break his own at the 
same time.” 

'^He didn’t. I don’t believe he had a big enough 
one to break. Oh, yes, I’ve always detested your 
great man, the General. They were engaged to be 
married, you have heard, I suppose, and three weeks 
before the wedding she found out some dreadful things 
about his life — and she behaved then, as Dr. The- 
ophilus used to say, Tike a gentleman of honour.’ He 
— he ought to have married another woman, but even 
after Aunt Matoaca gave him up, he refused to do it — 


I MEET WITH AN ADVENTURE 


161 


and this was what she never got over. If he had be- 
haved as dishonourably as that in business, no man 
would have spoken to him, she said — and can you 
believe it ? — she declined to speak to him for twenty 
years, though she was desperately in love with him all 
the time. She only began again when he got old and 
gouty and humbled himself to her. In my heart of 
hearts I can^t help disliking him in spite of all his suc- 
cess, but I really believe that he has never in his life 
cared for any woman except Aunt Matoaca. It^s be- 
cause she^s so perfectly honourable, I think — but, of 
course, it is her terrible experience that has made her 
so — so extreme in her views.^' 

'^What are her views 

'^She calls them principles — but Aunt Mitty says, 
and I suppose she^s right,- that it would have been more 
ladylike to have borne her wrongs in silence instead of 
shrieking them aloud. For my part I think that, how- 
ever loud she shrieked, she couldn^t shriek as loud as 
the General has acted.’^ 

'^I hope she isn^t still in love with him?^’ 

Her clear rippling laugh — the laugh of a free spirit 
— fluted over the broomsedge. ^^Can you imagine it? 
One might quite as well be in love with one^s Thanks- 
giving turkey. No, she isn’t in love with him now, 
but she’s in love with the idea that she used to be, and 
that’s almost as bad. I know it’s her own past that 
makes her think all the time about the wrongs of 
women. She wants to have them vote, and make the 
laws, and have a voice in the government. Do you?” 

never thought about it, but I’m pretty sure I 
shouldn’t like my wife to go to the polls,” I answered. 


162 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Again she laughed. funny, isn^t it? — that 

when you ask a man anything about women, he always 
begins to talk about his wife, even when he hasn’t got 
one?” 

'^That’s because he’s always hoping to have one, 1 
suppose.” 

''Do you want one very badly?” she taunted. 

"Dreadfully — the one I want.” 

"A real dream lady in pink tarlatan?” 

"No, a living lady in a riding habit.” 

If I had thought to embarrass her by this flight of 
gallantry, my hope was fruitless, for the arrow, splin- 
tered by her smile, fell harmlessly to the dust of the 
road. 

"An Amazon seems hardly the appropriate mate to 
Sir Charles Grandison,” she retorted. 

"Just now it was the General that I resembled.” 

"Oh, you out-generaled the General a mile back. 
Even he didn’t attempt to break the heart of Aunt 
Matoaca at their second meeting.” 

The candid merriment in her face had put me wholly 
at ease, — I who had stood tongue-tied and blushing 
before the simpers of poor Bessy. Dare as I might, 
I could bring no shadow of self-consciousness, no armour 
of sex, into her sparkling eyes. 

"And have I tried to break yours?” I asked bluntly. 

"Have you? You know best. I am not familiar 
with Grandisonian tactics.” 

"I don’t believe there’s a man alive who could break 
your heart,” I said. 

With her arm on the neck of the sorrel mare, she gave 
me back my glance, straight and full, like a gallant boy. 


I MEET WITH AN ADVENTURE 163 

Nothing/^ she remarked blithely, ''short of a ham- 
mer could do it/^ 

We laughed together, and the laughter brought us 
into an intimacy which to me, at least, was dangerously 
sweet. My head whirled suddenly. 

"You asked me last night about the one thing I^d 
wanted most all my life,^^ I said. 

"The thing that made you learn Johnson’s Diction- 
ary by heart?” she asked. 

"Only to the end of the c’s. Don’t credit me, please, 
with the whole alphabet.” 

"The thing, then, ” she corrected herself, " that made 
you learn the a, 6, c’s of J ohnson’s Dictionary by heart ? ” 

"If you wish it I will tell you what it was.” 

For the first time her look wavered. "Is it very 
long? Here is Franklin Street, and in a little while 
we shall be at home.” 

"It is not long — it is very short. It is a single word 
of three letters.” 

"I thought you said it had covered every hour of 
your life ? ” 

"Every hour of my life has been covered by a word 
of three letters.” 

"What an elastic word!” 

"It is, for it has covered everything at which I 
looked — both the earth and the sky.” 

"And the General and the Great South Midland and 
Atlantic Railroad?” 

"Without that word the General and the railroad 
would have been nothing.” 

"How very much obliged to it the poor General must 
be!” 


164 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


''Will you hear it?'^ I asked, for when I was once 
started to the goal there was no turning me by laughter. 

She raised her eyes, which had been lowered, and 
looked at me long and deeply — so long and deeply 
that it seemed as if she were seeking something within 
myself of which even I was unconscious. 

"Will you hear it?’^ I asked again. 

Her gaze was still on mine. "What is the word?^^ 
she asked, almost in a whisper. 

At the instant I felt that I staked my whole future, 
and yet that it was no longer in my power to hesitate 
or to draw back. "The word is — you,’' I replied. 

Her hand dropped from the mare’s neck, where it 
had almost touched mine, and I watched her mouth 
grow tremulous until the red of it showed in a violent 
contrast to the clear pallor of her face. Then she 
turned her head away from me toward the sun, and 
thoughtful and in silence, we passed down Franklin 
Street to the old grey house. 


CHAPTER XIII 


IN WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS 

When we had delivered the mare to the coloured 
groom waiting on the sidewalk, she turned to me for 
the first time since I had uttered my daring word. 

‘^You must come in to breakfast with us/^ she said, 
with a friendly and careless smile, ^^Aunt Mitty will 
be disappointed if I return without what she calls 
^ a cavalier.’ 

The doubt occurred to me if Miss Mitty would con- 
sider me entitled to so felicitous a phrase, but smother- 
ing it the next minute as best I could, I followed Sally, 
not without trepidation, up the short fiight of steps, 
and into the wide hall, where the air was heavy with 
the perfume of fading roses. Great silver bowls of 
them drooped now, with blighted heads, amid the 
withered smilax, and the fioor was strewn thickly 
with petals, as if a strong wind had blown down the 
staircase. From the dining room came a delicious 
aroma of coffee, and as we crossed the threshold, I 
saw that the two ladies, in their lace morning caps, 
were already seated at the round mahogany table. 
From behind the tall old silver service, the grave oval 
face of Miss Mitty cast on me, as I entered, a look in 
which a faint wonder was mingled with a pleasant 
hereditary habit of welcome. A cover was already 
laid for the chance comer, and as I took possession of 
165 


166 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


it, in response to her invitation, I felt again that 
terrible shyness — that burning physical embarrass- 
ment of the plain man in unfamiliar surroundings. 
So had I felt on the morning when I had stood in the 
kitchen, with my basket on my arm, and declined the 
plum cake for which my mouth watered. In the road 
with Sally I had appeared to share, as she had said, 
something of the dignity of the broomsedge and the 
open sky; here opposite to Miss Matoaca, with the 
rich mahogany table and the vase of chrysanthemums 
between us, I seemed ridiculously out of proportion 
to the surroundings amid which I sat, speechless and 
awkward. Was it possible that any woman could look 
beneath that mountain of shyness, and discern a self- 
confidence in large matters that would some day make 
a greater man than the General? 

Cream and sugar enquired Miss Mitty, in a tone 
from which I knew she had striven to banish the rec- 
ognition that she addressed a social inferior. Her 
pleasant smile seemed etched about her mouth, over 
the expression of faint wonder which persisted beneath. 
I felt that her racial breeding, like Miss Matoaca^s, 
was battling against her instinctive aversion, and at 
the same moment I knew that I ought to have declined 
the invitation Sally had given. A sense of outrage — 
of resentment — swelled hot and strong in my heart. 
What was this social barrier — this aristocratic stand- 
ard that could accept the General and reject such men 
as I? If it had sprung back, strong and flexible as a 
steel wire, before the man, would it still present its 
irresistible strength against the power of money ? 
In that instant I resolved that if wealth alone could 


IN WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS 167 

triumph over it, wealth should become the weapon of 
my attack. Then my gaze met Sally^s over the 
chrysanthemums, and the thought in my brain shrank 
back suddenly abashed. 

Dolly got a stone in her foot, poor dear,^’ she re- 
marked to her aunts, ^^and Ben Starr got it out. She 
limped all the way home.^^ 

At her playful use of my name, a glance flashed from 
Miss Mitty to Miss Matoaca and back again across the 
high silver service. 

^^Then we are very grateful to Mr. Starr,” replied 
Miss Mitty in a prim voice. '^Sister Matoaca and I 
were just agreeing that you ought not to be allowed to 
ride alone outside the city.” 

Perhaps we can arrange with Ben to go walking 
along the same road,” responded Sally provokingly, 
'^and I shouldnT be in need of a groom.” 

For the first time I raised my eyes. ^^1^11 walk any- 
where except along the road-to-what-might-have-been,” 
I said, and my voice was quite steady. 

Her glance dropped to her plate. Then she looked 
across the vase of chrysanthemums into Miss Mitty^s 
face. 

^^Ben and I used to play together. Aunt Mitty,” 
she said, offering the information as if it were the most 
pleasant fact in the world, ^^when I lived on Church 
Hill.” 

A flush rose to Miss Mitty^s cheeks, and passed the 
next instant, as if by a wave of sympathy, into Miss 
Matoaca^s. 

hoped, Sally, that you had forgotten that part 
of your life,” observed the elder lady stiffly. 


168 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


'"How can I forget it, Aunt Mitty? I was very 
happy over there/^ 

‘^And are you not happy here, dear?^’ asked Miss 
Matoaca, hurt by the words, and bending over, she 
smelt a spray of lilies-of-the-valley that had lain beside 
her plate. 

^^Of course I am. Aunt Matoaca, but one doesn^t 
forget. I met Ben first when I was six years old. 
Mamma and I stopped at his house in a storm one night 
on our way over to grandmama^s. We were soaking wet, 
and they were very kind and dried us and gave us hot 
things to drink, and his mother wrapped me up in a 
shawl and sent me here with mamma. I shall always 
remember how good they were, and how he broke off 
a red geranium from his mother^s plant and gave it to 
me.^^ 

As she told her story. Miss Mitty watched her atten- 
tively, the expression of faint wonder in her eyes and her 
narrow eyebrows, and her pleasant, rather pained 
smile etched delicately about her fine, thin lips. Her 
long, oval face, suffused now by an unusual colour, 
rose above the quaint old coffee urn, on which the 
Fairfax crest, belonging to her mother^s family, was 
engraved. If any passion could have been supposed 
to rock that flat, virgin bosom, I should have said 
that it was moved by a passion of wounded pride. 

'Hs your coffee right, Mr. Starr? Have you cream 
enough?” she enquired politely. Selim, give Mr. 
Starr a partridge.” 

My coffee was right, and I declined the bird, which 
would have stuck in my throat. The united pride of 
the Blands and the Fairfaxes, I told myself, could not 


IN WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS 169 


equal that possessed by a single obscure son of a stone- 
cutter. 

you are as hungry as I am, you are famished/’ 
observed Sally, with a gallant effort to make a sem- 
blance of gayety sport on a frozen atmosphere. Aunt 
Matoaca, have pity and give me a muffin.” 

Muffins were passed by Miss Matoaca; waffies were 
presented immediately by Selim. 

^^Do take a hot one,” urged Miss Matoaca anxiously, 
yours is quite cold.” 

I took a hot one, and after placing it on the small 
white and gold plate, swore desperately to myself 
that I would not eat a mouthful in that house until 
I could eat there as an equal. The faint wonder 
beneath the pained fixed smile on Miss Mitty’s face 
stabbed me like a knife. All her anxious hospitality, all 
her offers of cream and partridges, could not for a 
single minute efface it. Turning my head I discerned 
the same expression, still fainter, still gentler, reflected 
on Miss Matoaca’s lips — as if some subtle bond of 
sympathy between them were asking always, beneath 
the hereditary courtesy: ^^Can this be possible? Are 
we, whose mother was a Fairfax, whose father was 
a Bland, sitting at our own table with a man who is 
not a gentleman by birth ? — who has even brought 
a market basket to our kitchen door? What has be- 
come of the established order if such a thing as this 
can happen to two unprotected Virginia ladies?” 

And it was quite characteristic of their race, of their 
class, that the greater the wonder grew in their gentle 
minds, the more sedulously they plied me with coffee 
and partridges and preserves — that the more their 


170 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


souls abhorred me, the more lavish became their 
hands. Divided as they were by their principles, 
something stronger than a principle now held the sis- 
ters together, and this was a passionate belief in the 
integrity of their race. 

Again Selim handed the waffles in a frozen silence, 
and again Sally made an unsuccessful attempt to pro- 
duce an appearance of animation. 

^^Are you going to market. Aunt Matoaca?’’ she 
asked, ^^and will you remember to buy seed for my 
canary?” 

The flush in Miss Matoaca’s cheek this time, I could 
not explain. 

Sister Mitty will go,” she replied, in confusion, 
— I have another engagement.” 

“She alludes to a meeting of one of her boards,” 
observed Miss Mitty, and turning to me she added, 
with what I felt to be an unfair thrust at the shrinking 
bosom of Miss Matoaca, “My sister is a great reader, 
Mr. Starr, and she has drawn many of her opinions out 
of books instead of from life.” 

I looked up, my eyes met Miss Matoaca^s, and I 
remembered her love story. 

“We all do that, I suppose,” I answered. “Even 
when we get them from life, havenT most of them had 
their beginning in books?” 

“I am not a great reader myself,” remarked Miss 
Mitty, a trifle primly. “My father used to say that 
when a lady had read a chapter of her Bible in the 
morning, and consulted her cook-book, she had done 
as much literary work as was good for her. Too in- 
timate an acquaintance with books, he always said. 


IN WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS 171 


was apt to unsettle the views, and the best judgment 
a woman can have, I am sure, is the opinion of the 
gentlemen of her family.’’ 

^^That may be true,” I admitted, and my self- 
possession returned to me, until a certain masculine 
assurance sounded in my voice, ^^but I’m quite sure 
I shouldn’t like anybody else’s opinion to decide mine.” 

^^You are a man,” rejoined Miss Mitty, and I felt 
that she had not been able to bring her truthful lips 
to utter the word ^'gentleman.” It is natural that 
you should have independent ideas, but, as far as I 
am concerned, I am perfectly content to think as my 
grandmother and my great-grandmother have thought 
before me. Indeed, it seems to me almost disrespect- 
ful to differ from them.” 

^'And it was dear great-grandmama,” laughed 
Sally, ^^who when the doctor once enquired if her tooth 
ached, turned to great-grandpapa and asked, ^Does 
it ache, Bolivar?’” 

She had tossed her riding hat aside, and a single 
loosened wave of her hair had fallen low on her fore- 
head above her arched black eyebrows. Beneath it 
her eyes, very wide and bright, held a puzzled yet 
resolute look, as if they were fixed upon an obstacle 
which frightened her, and which she was determined 
to overcome. 

“You are speaking of my grandmama, Sally,” 
observed Miss Mitty, and I could see that the levity 
of the girl had wounded her. 

“I’m sorry, dear Aunt Mitty, she was my great-grand- 
mama, too, but that doesn’t keep me from thinking 
her a very silly person.” 


172 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


silly person? Your own great-grandmama, 
Sally!” Her mind, long and narrow, like her face, 
had never diverged, I felt, from the straight line of 
descent. 

^^My sister and I unfortunately do not agree in our 
principles, Mr. Starr,” said Miss Matoaca, breaking 
her strained silence suddenly in a high voice, and with 
an energy that left tremors in her thin, delicate figure. 
^Hndeed, I believe that I hold views which are op- 
posed generally by Virginia ladies — but I feel it to 
be a point of honour that I should let them be known.” 
She paused breathlessly, having delivered herself of 
the heresy that worked in her bosom, and a moment 
later she sat trembling from head to foot with her eyes 
on her plate. Poor little gallant lady, I thought, did 
she remember the time when at the call of that same 
word honour,” she had thrown away, not only her 
peace, but her happiness? 

Whatever your opinions may be. Miss Matoaca, 
I respect your honest and loyal support of them,” 
I said. 

The embarrassment that had overwhelmed me five 
minutes before had vanished utterly. At the first 
chance to declare myself — to contend, not merely 
with a manner, but with a situation, I felt the full 
strength of my manhood. The General himself could 
not have uttered his piquant pleasantries in a blither 
tone than I did my impulsive defence of the right of 
private judgment. Miss Mitty raised her eyes to mine, 
and Miss Matoaca did likewise. Over me their looks 
clashed, and I saw at once that it was the relentless 
warfare between individual temperament and racial 


IN WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS 173 

instinct. In spite of the obscurity of my birth, I 
knew that in Miss Matoaca, at that instant, I had won 
a friend. 

Surely Aunt Matoaca is right to express what she 
thinks,^' said Sally, loyally following my lead. 

^^No woman of our family has ever thought such 
things, Sally, or has ever felt called upon to express 
her views in the presence of men.^’ 

^^Well, I suppose, some woman has got to begin some 
day, and it may as well be Aunt Matoaca. 

There is no reason why any woman should begin. 
Your great-grandmama did not.^^ 

^^But my great-grandmama couldnT tell when her 
tooth ached, and you can, IVe heard you do it. It 
was very disrespectful of you, dear Auntie.’’ 

^^If you cannot be serious, Sally, I refuse to discuss 
the subject.” 

^'But how can anybody be serious. Aunt Mitty, 
about a person who didn’t know when her own tooth 
ached?” 

^^Dear sister,” remarked Miss Matoaca, in a voice of 
gentle obstinacy, ^^I do not wish to be the cause of a dis- 
agreement between Sally and yourself. Any question 
that was not one of principle I should gladly give up. 
I know you are not much of a reader, but if you would 
only glance at an article in the last Fortnightly Review 
on the Emancipation of Women — ” 

'^I should have thought, sister Matoaca, that Dr. 
Peterson’s last sermon in St. Paul’s on the feminine 
sphere would have been a far safer guide for you. His 
text, Mr. Starr,” she added, turning to me, “was, 'She 
looketh well to the ways of her household. ’ ” 


174 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


least you can^t accuse Aunt Matoaca of neglect- 
ing the ways of her household,” said Sally, merrily, 
^^even the General rises up after dinner and praises 
her mince pies. Do you like mince pies, Ben?” 

I replied that I was sure that I should like Miss 
Matoaca^s, for I had heard them lauded by General 
Bolingbroke; at which the poor lady blushed until 
her cheeks looked like withered rose leaves. She 
was one of those unhappy women, I had learned during 
breakfast, who suffered from a greater mental activity 
than was usually allotted to the females of their gen- 
eration. Behind that long and narrow face, with its 
pencilled eyebrows, its fine, straight nose, and rest- 
lessly shining eyes, what battles of conviction against 
tradition must have waged. Was the final triumph 
of intellect due, in reality, to the accident of an un- 
happy love? Had the GeneraPs frailties driven this 
shy little lady, with her devotion to law and order, 
and her excellent mince pies, into a martyr for the 
rights of sex? 

am told that Mrs. Clay prides herself upon her 
pies,” she remarked. ^‘1 have never eaten them, 
but Dr. Theophilus tells me that he prefers mine be- 
cause I use less suet.” 

am sure nobody^s could compare with yours, 
sister Matoaca,” observed Miss Mitty in an affable 
tone, ^'and I happen to know that Mrs. Clay resorts 
to Mrs. CamberwelPs cook-book. We prefer Mrs. 
Randolph's,” she added, turning to me. 

^^Well, weUl ask Ben to dinner some day, and he 
may judge,” said Sally. 

Instantly I felt that her words were a challenge, 


IN WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS 175 


and the shining mahogany table, with its delicate 
lace mats, its silver and its chrysanthemums, became 
a battle-field for opposing spirits. I saw Miss Mitty 
stiffen and the corners of her mouth grow rigid under 
her pleasant, fixed smile. 

^^Will you have some marmalade, Mr. Starr 
she asked, and I knew that with the phrase, she had 
flung down her gauntlet on the table. Her very 
politeness veiled a purpose, not of iron, but finely 
tempered and resistless as a blade. Had she said to 
me: ^^Sir, you are an upstart, and I, sitting quietly 
at the same table with you, and inviting you to eat 
of the same dish of marmalade, am a descendant of 
the Blands and the Fairfaxes,’^ — her words would 
have stabbed me less deeply than did the pathetic 
'^Can this be possible? of her smiling features. 

A canary, swinging in a gilt cage between the cur- 
tains at the window, broke suddenly into a jubilant 
fluting; and rising from the table, we stood for a 
minute, as if petrified, with our eyes on the bird, and 
on the box of blossoming sweet alyssum upon the sill. 
A little later, when I left with the plea that the General 
expected me at nine o^clock, the two elder ladies gave 
me their small, transparent hands, while their polite 
farewell sounded as final as if it had been uttered on the 
edge of an open grave. Only Sally, smiling up at me, 
with that puzzled yet determined look still in her eyes, 
said gayly, '^When you go walking at sunrise, Ben, 
choose the road-to-what-might-have-been 


CHAPTER XIV 


IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH 

Her words rang in my ears while I went along the 
crooked pavement under the burnished sycamore. 
As I met the General at the corner I was still hearing 
them, and they prompted the speech that burst im- 
pulsively from my lips. 

'^General, Vve got to get rich quickly, and I^m 
finding a way.’' 

You’d better make sure first that your royal road 
doesn’t end in a ditch.” 

was talking to a man from West Virginia yester- 
day about buying out the National Oil Company, and 
I dreamed of it all night. He wants me to go in with 
him, and start a refining plant. If I can get special 
privileges and rebates from the railroads to give us 
advantages, we may make a big business of it.” 

‘^You may and you mayn’t. Who’s your man? ” 

^^Sam Brackett. Bob’s brother, you know.” 

^'A mighty good fellow, and shrewd, too. But I’d 
think it over carefully, if I were you.” 

I did think it over, and the result of my thoughts 
was, as I told the General a fortnight later, the pur- 
chase of a refining plant near Clarksburg, and the be- 
ginning of a lively war with the competitors in the 
business. 


170 


IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH 


177 


''We’re going to sweep the South, General, with the 
help of the railroad,” I said. 

The great man, with his gouty foot in a felt slipper, 
sat gazing meditatively over the words of a telegram, 
which had come on his private wire. 

"Midland stock is selling at 160,” he said. "It’s 
a big railroad, my boy, and I’ve made it.” 

Even to-day, with the living presence of Sally still 
in my eyes, I was filled again with the old unap- 
peasable desire for the great railroad. The woman 
and the road were distinct and yet blended in my 
thoughts. 

At dinner-time, when the General hobbled to his buggy 
on my arm, I made again the remark I had blurted out 
so inopportunely. 

"General, I’ve been to West Virginia and started 
the plant, and we’re going to give Hail Columbia to 
our competitors.” 

He looked at me attentively, and a sly twinkle 
appeared in his little watery grey eyes, which were 
sunk deep in the bluish and swollen sockets. 

"Do you feel yourself getting big, Ben?” he en- 
quired, with a chuckle. 

I shook my head. "Not yet, but it’s a fair risk and 
a good chance to make a big business.” 

"Well, you’re right, I suppose, and if you ain’t 
you’ll find out before long. What’s luck, after all, 
but the thing that enables a man to see a long way 
ahead?” 

He settled himself under his fur rug, flicked the reins 
over the old grey horse, and we drove slowly up Main 
Street behind a street car. 


N 


178 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


donH know about luck, General, but I^m going to 
win out if hard pushing can do it/^ 

^^It can do 'most anything if you only push hard 
enough. But you talk as if you were in love, Ben. 
I've said the same thing a hundred times in my day, 
I reckon." 

I blushed furiously, and then turning my face from 
him, stared at a group of children upon the sidewalk. 

^^Whom could I marry. General?" I asked. ^^You 
know well enough that a woman in your class wouldn't 
marry a man in mine — unless — " 

Unless she were over head and heels in love with 
him," he chuckled. 

Unless he were a great man," I corrected. 

‘^You mean a rich man, Ben? So your oil business 
is merely a little love attention, after all." 

^^No, money has very little to do with it, and the 
woman I want to marry wouldn't marry me for money. 
But it's the mettle that counts, and in this age, given the 
position I've started from, how can a man prove his 
mettle except by success? — and success does mean 
money. The president of the Great South Midland and 
Atlantic Railroad is obliged to be a rich man, isn't he?" 

'^So you're still after my job, eh? Is that why 
you've let me bully and badger you for the last six 
years?" 

^^It was at the bottom of it," I answered honestly, 
for the gay old bird liked downright speaking, and I 
knew it. ^M'd rather have been your confidential 
secretary for six years than general manager of traffic. 
I was learning what I wanted to know." 

‘‘And what was that?" 


IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH 


179 


^^The way you did things. The way you handled 
men and bought and sold stocks.^^ 

“You like the road, too, eh?” 

“I like the road as long as it can be of use to me.” 

“And when it ceases to be you^ll throw it over?” 

“Yes, if it ever ceases to be I’ll throw it over — 
honestly,” I answered. 

“Now that’s the thing,” he said, “remember always 
that in handling men honesty is a big asset. I’ve 
always been honest, my boy, and it’s helped me when 
I needed it. Why, when I came in and got control of 
the road in that slump after the war, I was able to 
reorganise it principally because of the reputation for 
honesty I had earned. It was a long time before it 
began to pay dividends, but nobody grumbled. They 
knew I was doing my best — and that I was doing it 
fair and square, and to-day we control nearly twenty 
thousand miles of road.” 

“Yes, honesty I’ve learned in your office, sir.” 

“Well, it’s good training, — it’s mighty good train- 
ing, if I do say it myself. You could have got with a 
darn bloater like Dick Horseley, and he’d have worked 
your ruin. Now you never saw me lose my head, 
did you, eh, Ben?” 

I replied that I had not — not even when his private 
wire had ticked off news of the last panic. 

“Well, I never did,” he said reflectively, “except 
with women. Take my advice, Ben, and find a good 
sensible wife, even if she’s in your own class, and 
marry and settle down. It steadies a man, somehow. 
I’d be a long ways happier to-day,” he added, a little 
wistfully, “if I’d taken a wife when I was young.” 


180 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


I thought of Miss Matoaca, with her bright brown 
eyes, her withered roseleaf cheeks, and her sacrifice in 
the cause of honour. 

‘^Whatever you are don’t be an old bachelor,” he 
pursued after a pause, ^4t may be pleasant in the 
beginning, but I’ll be blamed if it pays in the end. 
Find a good sensible woman who hasn’t any opinions 
of her own, and you will be happy. But as you value 
your peace, don’t go and fall in love with a woman 
who has any heathenish ideas in her head. When a 
woman once gets that maggot in her brain, she stops 
believing in gentleness and self-sacrifice, and by George, 
she ceases to be a woman. Every man knows there’s 
got to be a lot of sacrifice in marriage, and he likes to 
feel that he’s marrying a woman who is fully capable 
of making it. A strong-minded woman can’t — she’s 
gone and unsexed herself — and instead of taking 
pleasure in giving up, she begins to talk everlastingly 
about her ^honour.’ Pshaw! the next thing she’ll 
expect to be treated as punctiliously as if she were a 
business partner!” 

The old wound still ached sometimes, it was easy 
to see; and because of his age and his growing in- 
firmities, he found it harder to keep back the querulous 
complaints that rose to his lips. 

^^Now, there’s that George of mine,” he resumed, 
still fretting, ^^he’s probably gone and set his eyes on 
Sally Mickleborough, and it’s as plain as daylight that 
she’s got a plenty of that outlandish spirit of her 
aunt’s. I don’t mean she’s got her notions — I ain’t 
saying any harm of the girl — she’s handsome enough 
in spite of Hatty’s nonsense about her mouth — and 


IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH 


181 


I call it downright scandalous of Edmund Bland to 
leave every last penny of his money away from her. 
But, mark my words, and I tell George so every 
single day I live, if she marries George he^s going to 
have trouble as sure as shot. She^s just the kind to 
expect him to make sacrifices, and by Jove, no man 
wants to be expected to make sacrifices in his own 
home 

Sacrifices! My blood sang in my ears. If she 
would only marry me Vd promise to make a sacrifice 
for her every blessed minute that I lived. 

^'And do you think she likes George, General?” I 
asked timidly. 

^^Oh, I don^t suppose she knows her own mind,” he 
retorted. never in my life, sir, knew but one 
woman who did.” 

We drove on for a minute in silence, and from the 
red and watery look in the Generals eyes, I inferred 
that, in spite of his broken engagement and his bitter 
judgment. Miss Matoaca had managed to retain her 
place in his memory. As I looked at him, sitting 
there like a wounded eagle, huddled under his fur 
rug, a feeling of thanksgiving that was almost one of 
rapture swelled in my heart. If I had a plain name, 
I had also a clean life to offer the woman I loved. 
When I remembered the strong, pure line of her fea- 
tures, her broad, intelligent brow, her clear, unswerv- 
ing gaze, I told myself that whatever the world had 
to say, she, at least, would consider the difference a 
fair one. At the great moment she would choose me, 
I knew, for myself alone ; choose in a democracy the 
man who, God helping him, would stand always for 


182 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the best in the democratic spirit — for courage and 
truth and strength and a clean honour toward men 
and women. 

'^Who was that pretty girl, Ben,’’ the General en- 
quired presently, ‘^1 saw you walking with last Sun- 
day ? A sweetheart ? ” 

^^No, sir. My sister. 

lady? She looked it.^^ 

^‘She has been taught like one.’' 

‘^What’ll you do with her? Marry her off?” 

haven’t thought — but she won’t look at any of 
the men she knows.” 

^^Oh, well, if the National Oil wins, you may give 
her a fortune. There are plenty of young chaps who 
would jump at her. Bless my soul, she’s more to my 
taste than Sally Mickleborough. It’s the women who 
are such fools about birth, you know, men don’t care 
a rap. Why, if I’d loved a woman, she might have 
been born in the poorhouse for all the thought I’d 
have given it. A pretty face or a small foot goes a 
long sight farther with a man than the tallest grand- 
father that ever lived.” For a moment he was silent, 
and then he spoke softly, unconscious that he uttered 
his thought aloud. ^^No, Matoaca’s birth, whatever 
it might have been, couldn’t have come between us 
— it was her damned principles.” 

He looked tired and old, now that his armour of 
business had dropped from him, as he sat there, with 
the fur rug drawn over his chest, and his loose lower 
lip hanging slightly away from his shrunken gums. 
A sudden pity, the first I had ever dared feel for the 
president of the Great South Midland and Atlantic 


IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH 


183 


Railroad, shot through my heart. The gay old bird 
I told myself, was shedding his plumage at last. 

^‘Well, as long as I can^t rest on my birth, I might 
as well stand up on something,’^ I said. 

Women think a lot of it,'' he resumed, as if he 
had not noticed my flippant interjection; ^^and I 
reckon it about fits the size of their minds. Why, 
to hear Miss Mitty Bland talk you would think good 
birth was the only virtue she admitted to the first 
rank. I was telling her about you," he added with a 
chuckle, '^and you've got sense enough to see the 
humour of what she said." 

“I hope I have. General." 

^'Well, I began it by boasting about your looks, 
Ben, if you don't mind. ^That wonderful boy of ours 
is the finest-looking fellow in the South to-day. Miss 
Mitty,' I burst out, ^ and he stands six feet two in his 
stockings.' ‘Ah, General,' she replied sadly, ‘what 
are six feet two inches without a grandfather?'" 

He threw back his head with a roar, appearing a 
trifle chagrined the next instant by my faint-hearted 
pretence of mirth. 

“Doesn't it tickle you, Ben?" he enquired, check- 
ing his laughter. 

“I'm afraid it makes me rather angry. General," I 
answered. 

“Oh, well, I didn't think you'd take it seriously. 
It's just a joke, you know. Go ahead and make your 
fortune, and they'll receive you quick enough." 

“But they have received me. They asked me to 
their party." 

“That was Sally, my boy — it was her party, and 


184 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


she fought the ladies for you. That girFs a born 
fighter, and I reckon she gets it from Harry Mickle- 
borough — for the only blessed thing he could do was 
to fight. He was a mighty poor man, was Harry, 
but a God Almighty soldier — and he sent more 
Yankees to glory than any single man in the whole 
South. The girl gets it from him, and she hasnT any 
of her aunts^ aristocratic nonsense in her either. She 
told Miss Mitty, on the spot, and I can see her eyes shine 
now, that she liked you and she meant to know you.’^ 

“That she meant to know me,’^ I repeated, with a 
singing heart. 

“The ladies were put out, I could see, but they 
ainT a match for that scamp Harry, and he^s in her. 
There never lived the general that could command 
him, and heM have been shot for insubordination in 
’63 if he hadn’t been as good as a whole company to 
the army. H’ll fight for the South and welcome,’ he 
used to say, ^but, by God, sir. I’ll fight as I damn 
please.’ ’Twas the same way about the church, too. 
Old Dr. Peterson got after him once about standing, 
instead of kneeling, during prayers, and H’ll pray as 
I damn please, sir!’ responded Harry. Oh, he was a 
sad scamp 1” 

“So his daughter fought for me?” I said. “How 
did it end?” 

“It will end all right when you are president of the 
Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad, and have 
shipped me to Kingdom Come. They won’t shut their 
doors in your face, then.”" 

“But she stood up for me?” I asked, and my voice 
trembled. 


IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH 


185 


'^She? Do you mean Miss Matoaca? Well, she 
granted your good looks and your virtues, but she 
regretted that they couldn’t ask you to their house.” 

^^And Miss Mitty?” 

^^Oh, Miss Mitty assured me that six feet two were 
as an inch in her sight, without a grandfather.” 

^^But her niece — Miss Mickleborough ? ” I had 
worked delicately up to my point. 

^^The girl fought for you — but then she’s obliged 
to fight for something — it’s Harry in her. That’s 
why, as I said to George at breakfast, I don’t want 
him to marry her. She’s a good girl, and I like her, 
but who in the deuce wants to marry a fighting wife? 
Look at that fellow mauling his horse, Ben. It makes 
me sick to see ’em do it, but it’s no business of mine, 
I reckon.” 

^^It is of mine. General,” I replied, for the sight of 
an ill-treated animal had made my blood boil since 
childhood. Before he could answer, I had jumped 
over the moving wheel, and had reached the miserable, 
sore-backed horse struggling under a load of coal and 
a big stick. 

^Tome off and put your shoulder to the wheel, you 
drunken brute,” I said, as my rage rose in my 
throat. 

^^I’ll be damned if I will,” replied the fellow, and he 
was about to begin belabouring again, when I seized 
him by the collar and swung him clear to the street. 

^^I’ll be damned if you don’t,” I retorted. 

I was a strong man, and when my passions were 
roused, the thought of my own strength slipped from 
my consciousness. 


186 THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

^‘You^ll break his bones, Ben,^’ said the General, 
leaning out of his buggy, but his eyes shone as they 
might have shone at the sight of his first battle. 

hope I shall, I responded grimly, and going 
over to the wagon I put my shoulder to the wheel, 
and began the ascent of the steep hill. Somebody on 
the pavement came to my help on the other side, and 
we went up slowly, with a half-drunken driver reeling 
at our sides and the General following, in his buggy, 
a short way behind. 

^‘1 thought you were a diffident fellow, Ben,^^ re- 
marked the great man, as I took my seat again by his 
side; ^^but I don’t believe there’s another man in 
Richmond that would make such a spectacle of him- 
self.” 

forget myself when I’m worked up,” I answered, 
^^and I forget that anybody is looking.” 

^^Well, somebody was,” he replied slyly. ^^You 
didn’t see Miss Matoaca Bland pass you in a carriage 
as you were pushing that wheel?” 

^^No, I didn’t see anybody.” 

^^She saw you — and so did Sally Mickleborough. 
Why, I’d have given something pretty in my day to 
make a girl’s eyes blaze like that.” 

A week later I swallowed my pride, with an effort, 
and called at the old grey house at the hour of sunset. 
Selim, stepping softly, conducted me into the dimly 
lighted drawing-room, where a cedar log burned, with 
a delicious fragrance, on a pair of high brass andirons. 
The red glow, half light, half shadow, flickered over 
the quaint tapestried furniture, the white-painted 
woodwork, and the portraits of departed Blands and 


IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH 


187 


Fairfaxes that smiled gravely down, with averted 
eyes. In a massive gilt frame over a rosewood spinet 
there was a picture of Miss Mitty and Miss Mataoca, 
painted in fancy dress, with clasped hands, under a 
garland of roses. My gaze was upon it, when the 
sound of a door opening quickly somewhere in the 
rear came to my ears; and the next instant I heard 
Miss Mitty^s prim tones saying distinctly : — 

^^Tell Mr. Starr, Selim, that the ladies are not re- 
ceiving.^^ 

There was a moment^s silence, followed by a voice 
that brought my delighted heart with a bound into 
my throat. 

^'Aunt Mitty, I will see him.’’ 

''Sally, how can you receive a man who was not 
born a gentleman?” 

"Aunt Mitty, if you don’t let me see him here. I’ll 
— I’ll meet him in the street.” 

The door shut sharply, there was a sound of rapid 
steps, and the voices ceased. Harry Mickleborough, 
in his daughter, I judged, had gained the victory; for 
an instant afterwards I heard her cross the hall, with 
a defiant and energetic rustle of skirts. When she 
entered the room, and held out her hand, I saw that 
she was dressed in her walking gown. There were 
soft brown furs about her throat, and on her head she 
wore a small fur hat, with a bunch of violets at one 
side, under a thin white veil. 

"I was just going to walk,” she said, breathing a 
little quickly, while her eyes, very wide and bright, 
held that puzzled and resolute look I remembered; 
"will you come with me?” 


188 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


She turned at once to the door, as if eager to leave 
the house, and while I followed her through the hall, 
and down the short flight of steps to the pavement, 
I was conscious of a sharp presentiment that I should 
never again cross that threshold. 


CHAPTER XV 


A MEETING IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 

I SPOKE no word of love in that brisk walk up 
Franklin Street, and when I remembered this a month 
afterwards, it seemed to me that I had let the oppor- 
tunity of a lifetime slip by. Since that afternoon I 
had not seen Sally again — some fierce instinct held 
me back from entering the doors that would have 
closed against me — and as the days passed, crowded 
with work and cheered by the immediate success of 
the National Oil Company, I felt that Miss Mitty and 
Miss Matoaca, and even Sally, whom I loved, had 
faded out of the actual world into a vague cloud-like 
horizon. To women it is given, I suppose, to merge 
the ideal into everyday life, but with men it is dif^ 
ferent. I saw Sally still every minute that I lived, 
but I saw her as a star, set high above the common 
business world in which I had my place — above the 
strain and stress of the GeneraFs office, above the rise 
and fall of the stock market, above the brisk trium-» 
phant war with competitors for the National Oil Com- 
pany, above even the hope of the future presidency of 
the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. Be- 
tween my love and its fulfilment, stretched, I knew, 
hard years of struggle, but bred in me, bone and 
structure, the instinct of democracy was still strong 
189 


190 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


enough to support me in the hour of defeat. Never 
once — not even when I sat, condescendingly plied 
with coffee and partridges, face to face with the won- 
der expressed in Miss Mitty^s eyes, had I admitted to 
myself that I was obliged to remain in the class from 
which I had sprung. Courage I had never lost for an 
instant; the present might embarrass me, but the 
future, I felt always, I held securely grasped in my 
own hands. The birthright of a Republic was mine 
as well as the GeneraFs, and I knew that among a free 
people it was the mettle of the man that would count 
in the struggle. In the fight between democratic 
ideals and Old World institutions I had no fear, even 
to-day, of what the future would bring. The right of 
a man to make his own standing was all that I asked. 

And yet the long waiting ! As I walked one Sun- 
day afternoon over to Church Hill, after a visit to 
Jessy (who was living now with a friend of the doc- 
tor's), I asked myself again and again if Sally had 
read my heart that last afternoon and had seen in it 
the reason of my fierce reserve. Jessy had been 
affectionate and very pretty — she was a cold, small, 
blond woman, with a perfect face and the manner of 
an indifferent child — but she had been unable to 
wean me from the thought which returned to take 
royal possession as soon as the high pressure of my 
working day was relaxed. It controlled me utterly 
from the moment I put the question of the stock 
market aside; and it was driving me now, like the 
ghost of an unhappy lover, back for a passionate hour 
in the enchanted garden. 

The house was half closed when I reached it, though 


A MEETING IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN I9l 

the open shutters to the upper windows led me to 
believe that some of the rooms, at least, were tenanted. 
When I entered the gate and passed the stuccoed wing 
to the rear piazza, I saw that the terraces were blotted 
and ruined as if an invading army had tramped over 
them. The magnolias and laburnums, with the ex- 
ception of a few lonely trees, had already fallen; the 
latticed arbours were slowly rotting away ; and several 
hardy rose-bushes, blooming bravely in the overgrown 
squares, were the only survivals of the summer splen- 
dour that I remembered. Turning out of the path, I 
plucked one of these gallant roses, and found it pale 
and sickly, with a November blight at the heart. 
Only the great elms still arched their bared branches 
unchanged against a red sunset; and now as then the 
small yellow leaves fluttered slowly down, like wounded 
butterflies, to the narrow walks. 

I had left the upper terrace and had descended the 
sunken green steps, when the dry rustle of leaves in 
the path fell on my ears, and turning a fallen summer 
house, I saw Sally approaching me through the broken 
maze of the box. A colour flamed in her face, and 
pausing in the leaf-strewn path, she looked up at me 
with shining and happy eyes. 

^^It has been so long since I saw you,’’ she said, 
with her hand outstretched. 

I took her hand, and turning we moved down the 
walk while I still held it in mine. Out of the blur of 
her figure, which swam in a mist, I saw only her 
shining and happy eyes. 

^^It has been a thousand years,” I answered, “but I 
knew that they would pass.” 


192 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


'^That they would pass?^^ she repeated. 

'^That they must pass. I have worked for that end 
every minute since I saw you. I have loved you, as 
you surely know,^^ I blurted out, every instant of my 
life, but I knew that I could offer you nothing until I 
could offer you something worthy of your acceptance.^' 

Reaching out her hand, which she had withdrawn 
from mine, she caught several drifting elm leaves in her 
open palm. 

‘^And what," she asked slowly, 'Mo you consider to 
be worthy of my acceptance?" 

"A name," I answered, "that you would be proud to 
bear. Not only the love of a man's soul and body, but 
the soul and body themselves after they have been 
tried and tested. Wealth, I know, would not count 
with you, and I believe, birth would not, even though 
you are a Bland — but I must have wealth, I must 
have honour, so that at least you will not appear to 
stoop. I must give you all that it lies in my power to 
achieve, or I must give you nothing." 

"Wealth! honour!" she said, with a little laugh, 
"0 Ben Starr! Ben Starr!" 

"So that, at least, you will not appear to stoop," 
I repeated. 

"I stoop to you?" she responded, and again she 
laughed. 

"You know that I love you?" I asked. 

"Yes," she replied, and lifted her eyes to mine, "I 
know that you love me." 

"Beyond love I have nothing at the moment." 

A light wind swept the leaves from her hand, and 
blew the ends of her white veil against my breast. 


A MEETING IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 193 


'^And suppose/^ she demanded in a clear voice, 
^Hhat love was all that I wanted?^’ 

Her lashes did not tremble ; but in her eyes, in her 
parted red lips, and in her whole swift and expectant 
figure, there was something noble and free, as if she 
were swept forward by the radiant purpose which 
shone in her look. 

‘^Not my love — not yet — my darling,^^ I said. 

At the word her blush came. 

^^You say you have only yourself to give,^^ she went 
on with an effort. ^Hs it possible that in the future — 
in any future — you could have more than yourself?” 

'^Not more love, Sally, not more love.” 

'^Then more of what?” 

'^Of things that other men and women count worth 
the having ! ” 

The sparkle returned to her eyes, and I watched the 
old childish archness play in her face. 

'^Do I understand that you are proposing to other 
men and women or to me, sir?” she enquired, above 
her muff, in the prim tone of Miss Mitty. 

“To neither the one nor the other,” I answered 
stubbornly, though I longed to kiss the mockery away 
from her curving lips. “When the time comes I shall 
return to you.” 

“And you are doing this for the sake of other people, 
not for me,” she said. “I suppose, indeed, that it^s 
Aunt Mitty and Aunt Matoaca you are putting before 
me. They would be fiattered, I am sure, if they could 
only know of it — but they canT. As a matter of fact, 
they also put something before me, so I donT appear 
to come first with anybody. Aunt Mitty prefers her 


194 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


pride and Aunt Matoaca prefers her principles, and 
you prefer both — 

^‘1 am only twenty-six/^ I returned. ''In five years 
— in ten at most — I shall be far in the race — 

"And quite out of breath with the running/^ she 
observed, "by the time you turn and come back for 
ino.^^ 

"I don^t dare ask you to wait for me.'^ 

"As a matter of fact,^’ she responded serenely, "I 
don’t think I shall. I could never endure waiting.” 

Her calmness was like a dash of cold water into my 
face. 

"Don’t laugh at me whatever you do,” I im- 
plored. 

"I’m not laughing — it’s far too serious,” she 
retorted. "That scheme of yours,” she flashed out 
suddenly, '4s worthy of the great brain of the 
General.” 

"Now I’ll stand anything but that ! ” I replied, and 
turned squarely on her; "Sally, do you love me?” 

"Love a man who puts both his pride and his prin- 
ciples before me?” 

"If you don’t love me — and, of course you can’t — 
why do you torment me?” 

"It isn’t torment, it’s education. When next you 
start to propose to the lady of your choice, don’t begin 
by telling her you are lovesick for the good opinion of 
her maiden aunts.” 

"Sally, Sally !” I cried joyfully. My hand went out 
to hers, and then as she turned away — my arm was 
about her, and the little fur hat with the bunch of 
violets was on my breast. 


A MEETING IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 195 


^^0, Ben Starr, were you born blind she said with 
a sob. 

''Sally, am I mad or do you love me?’^ I asked, and 
the next instant, bending over as she looked up, I 
kissed her parted lips. 

For a minute she was silent, as if my kiss had drawn 
her strength through her tremulous red mouth. Her 
body quivered and seemed to melt in my arms — and 
then with a happy laugh, she yielded herself to my 
embrace. 

"A little of both, Ben,’’ she answered, "you are mad, 
I suppose, and so am I — and I love you.” 

"But how could you? When did you begin?” 

"I could because I would, and there was no begin- 
ning. I was born that way.” 

"You meant you have cared for me, as I have for 
you — always?” 

"Not always, perhaps — but — well, it started in 
the churchyard, I think, when I gave you Samuel. 
Then when I met you again it might have been just the 
way you look — for oh, Ben, did you ever discover 
that you are splendid to look at?” 

"A magnificent animal,” I retorted. 

She blushed, recognising the phrase. "To tell the 
truth, though, it wasn’t the way you look,” she went 
on impulsively, "it was, I think, — I am quite sure, — 
the time you pushed that wheel up the hill. I adored 
you, Ben, at that moment. If you’d asked me to 
marry you on the spot I’d have responded, 'Yes, 
thank you, sir,’ as one of my great-grandmothers did 
at the altar.” 

"And to think I didn’t even know you were 


196 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


there. I^d forgotten it, but I remember now the 
General told me I made a spectacle of myself.’^ 

^^Well, I always liked a spectacle, it’s in my blood. 
I like a man, too, who does things as if he didn’t care 
whether anybody was looking at him or not — and 
that’s you, Ben.” 

'^It’s not my business to shatter your ideals,” I 
answered, and the next minute, '^0 Sally, how is it 
to end?” 

^^That depends, doesn’t it,” she asked, whether 
you want to marry me or my maiden aunts?” 

'^Do you mean that you will marry me?” 

mean, Ben, that if you aren’t so obliging as to 
marry me. I’ll pine away and die a lovelorn death.” 

^^Be serious, Sally.” 

Could anything on earth be more serious than a 
lovelorn death? ” 

I would have caught her back to my breast, but 
eluding my arms, she stood poised like the fleeting 
spirit of gaiety in the little path. 

'^Will you promise to marry me, Ben Starr?” she 
asked. 

'^I’ll promise anything on earth,” I answered. 

'^Not to talk any more about my stooping to a 
giant?” 

won’t talk about it, darling. I’ll let you do it.” 

'^And if you’re poor you’ll let me be poor too? And 
if you’re rich you’ll give me a share of the money?” 
Both — all.” 

'^And you’ll make a sacrifice for me — as the Gen- 
eral said George wouldn’t — whenever I happen par- 
ticularly to want one ? ” 


A MEETING IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN 197 

A million of them — anything, everything/^ 

She came a step nearer, and raised her smiling lips to 
mine. 

‘^Anything — everything, Ben, together,” she said. 

Presently we walked back slowly, hand in hand, 
through the maze of box. 

Will you tell your aunts, or shall I, Sally ?” I asked. 

'^We^ll go to them together.” 

''Now, at this instant?” 

"Now — at this instant,” she agreed, "but I thought 
you were so patient?” 

"Patient? I^m as patient as an engine on the Great 
South Midland.” 

"A minute ago you were prepared to wait ten years.” 

"Oh, ten years !” I echoed, as I followed her out of 
the enchanted garden. 

At the corner the surrey was standing, and the face 
of old Shadrach, the negro driver, stared back at me, 
transfixed with amazement. 

"Whar you gwine now. Miss Sally?” he demanded 
defiantly of his young mistress, as I took my place 
under the fur rug beside her. 

"Home, Uncle Shadrach,” she replied. 

"Ain’t I gwine drap de gent’man some whar on de 
way up?” 

"No, Uncle Shadrach, home,” — and for home we 
started merrily with a flick of the whip over the backs 
of the greys. 

Sitting beside her for the first time in my life, I was 
conscious, as we drove through the familiar streets, only 
of an acute physical delight in her presence. As she 
turned toward me. her breath fanned my cheek, the 


198 


THE EOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


touch of her arm on mine was a rapture, and when the 
edge of her white veil was blown into my face, I felt 
my blood rush to meet it. Never before had I been so 
confident, so strong, so assured of the future. Not 
the future alone, but the whole universe seemed to lie 
in the closed palm of my hand. I knew that I was 
plain, that I was rough beside the velvet softness of 
the woman who had promised to share my life; but 
this plainness, this roughness, no longer troubled me 
since she had found in it something of the power that 
had drawn her to me. My awkwardness had dropped 
from me in the revelation of my strength which she had 
brought. The odour of burning leaves floated up from 
the street, and I saw again her red shoes dancing over 
the sunken graves in the churchyard. Oh, those red 
shoes had danced into my life and would stay there 
forever ! 


CHAPTER XVI 


IN WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND 

We crossed the threshold, which I had thought never 
to pass again, and entered the drawing-room, where a 
cedar log burned on the andirons. At either end of the 
low brass fender. Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca sat very 
erect, like two delicate silhouettes, the red light of the 
flames shining through their fine, almost transparent 
profiles. Beyond them, over the rosewood spinet, I 
saw their portrait, painted in fancy dress, with clasped 
hands under a garland of roses. 

As we entered the room, they rose slightly from their 
chairs, and turned toward us with an expression of mild 
surprise on their faces. It was impossible, I knew, for 
their delicately moulded features to express any im- 
pulse more strongly. 

^^Dear aunties,^^ began Sally, in a voice that was a 
caress, ^HVe brought Ben back with me because I 
met him in the garden on Church Hill — and — and — 
and he told me that he loved me.^^ 

'Hie told you that he loved you?^^ repeated Miss 
Mitty in a high voice, while Miss Matoaca sat speech- 
less, with her unnaturally bright eyes on her niece^s 
face. 

Kneeling on the rug at their feet, Sally looked from 
one to the other with an appealing and tender glance. 

199 


200 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^You brought him back because he told you that hfe 
loved you?” said Miss Mitty again, as if her closed 
mind had refused to admit the words she had uttered. 

^^Well, only partly because of that, Aunt Mitty,” 
replied Sally bravely, ^Hhe rest was because — because 
I told him that I loved him.” 

For a moment there was a tense and unnatural 
silence in the midst of which I heard the sharp crack- 
ling of the fire and smelt the faint sweet smell of 
the burning cedar. The two aunts looked at each 
other over the kneeling girl, and it seemed to me 
that the long, narrow faces had grown suddenly 
pinched and old. 

— I donT think we understood quite what you 
said, Sally dear,” said Miss Matoaca, in a hesitating 
voice ; and I felt sorry for her as she spoke — sorry for 
them both because the edifice of their beliefs and tradi- 
tions, reared so patiently through the centuries by 
dead Fairfaxes and Blands, had crumbled about their 
ears. 

^^What she means. Miss Matoaca,” I said gently, 
coming forward into the firelight, ^^is that I have asked 
her to marry me.” 

^'To marry you — you — Ben Starr?” exclaimed 
Miss Mitty abruptly, rising from her chair, and then 
falling nervelessly back. ''There is some mistake 
— not that I doubt,” she added courteously, the 
generations of breeding overcoming her raw impulse of 
horror, "not that I doubt for a minute that you are an 
estimable and deserving character — General Boling- 
broke tells me so and I trust his word. But Sally 
marry you! Why, your father — I beg your pardon 


IN WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND 201 


foF reminding you of it — your father was not even an 
educated man/^ 

^^No/^ I replied, ^^my father was not an educated 
man, but I sun” 

^^That speaks very well for you, sir, I am sure — but 
how — how could my niece marry a man who — I 
apologise again for alluding to your origin — whose 
father was a stone-cutter — I have heard 

^^Yes, he was a stone-cutter, and I am sorry to say 
wasn’t even a good one.” 

^‘1 don’t know that good or bad makes a difference, 
except, of course, as it affected his earning a livelihood. 
But the fact remains that he was a common workman 
and that no member of our family on either side has 
ever been even remotely connected with trade. Surely, 
you yourself, Mr. Starr, must be aware that my niece 
and you are not in the same walk of life. Do you not 
realise the impossibility of — of the connection you 
speak of?” 

“I realised it so much,” I answered, ^Hhat until I 
met her this afternoon I had determined to wait five — 
perhaps ten years before asking her to become my 
wife.” 

^^Ten years? But what can ten years have to do 
with it? Families are not made in ten years, Mr. 
Starr, and how could that length of time alter the fact 
that your father was a person of no education and that 
you yourself are a self-made man?” 

am not ashamed to offer her the man after he is 
made,” I replied. ^^What I did not think worthy of 
her was the man in the making.” 

^^But it is the man in the making that I want,” said 


202 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Sally, rising to her feet, and taking my hand in hers. 
^'0 Aunt Matoaca, I love him 

The little lady to whom she appealed bent slowly for- 
ward in the firelight, her face, which had grown old and 
wan, looking up at us, as we stood there, hand in hand, 
on the rug. 

am distressed for you, Sally,” she said, ^'but when 
it becomes a question of honour, love must be sacri- 
ficed.” 

Honour!” cried Sally, and there was a passionate 
anger in her voice, ^^but I do honour him.” My hand 
was in hers, and she stooped and kissed it before turn- 
ing to Miss Matoaca, who had drawn herself up, thin 
and straight as a blade, in her chair. 

'^You are right,” I said, ^Ho tell me that I am un- 
worthy of your niece — for I am. I am plain and 
rough beside her, but, at least, I am honest. What I 
offer her is a man^s heart, and a man’s hand that has 
dealt cleanly and fairly with both men and women.” 

Until the words were uttered my pride had blinded 
me to my cruelty. Then I saw two bright red spots 
appear in Miss Matoaca’s thin cheeks, and I asked 
myself in anger if the General or George Bolingbroke 
would have been guilty of so deep a thrust? Did she 
dream that I knew her story ? And were those pathetic 
red spots the outward sign of a stab in her gentle 
bosom ? 

'^There are many different kinds of merit, Mr. Starr,” 
she returned, with a wistful dignity. I do not under- 
value that of character, but I do not think that even a 
good character can atone for the absence of family im 
heritance — of the qualities which come from refined 


IN WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND 203 


birth and breeding. We have had the misfortune in 
our family of one experience of an ill-assorted and 
tragic marriage/^ she added. 

We must never forget poor Sarah^s misery and ours, 
Sister Matoaca,’’ remarked Miss Mitty, from the op- 
posite side of the hearth; ^^and yet Harry Mickle- 
borough^s father was a most respectable man, and the 
teacher of Greek in a college.’^ 

All the pity went out of me, and I felt only a blind 
sense of irritation at the artificial values, the feminine 
lack of grasp, the ignorance of the true proportions of 
life. I grew suddenly hard, and something of this 
hardness passed into my voice when I spoke. 

stand or fall by own worth and by that alone, I 
returned, ^^and your niece, if she marries me, will 
stand or fall as I do. I ask no favours, no allowances, 
even from her.^^ 

Withdrawing her hand from mine, Sally took a 
single step forward, and stood with her eyes on the 
faces that showed so starved and wan in the firelight. 

^^Don^t you see — oh, can^t you see,^^ she asked, 
^^that it is because of these very things that I love him? 
How can I separate his past from what he is to-day? 
How can I say that I would have this or that different 
— his birth, his childhood, his struggle — when all 
these have helped to make him the man I love ? Who 
else have I ever known that could compare with him 
for a minute? You wanted me to marry George 
Bolingbroke, but what has he ever done to prove what 
he was worth ?^^ 

''Sally, Sally,'' said Miss Mitty, sternly, "he had no 
need to prove it. It was proved centuries before his 


204 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


birth. The Bolingbrokes proved themselves to their 
king before this was a country — 

^^Well, I^m not his king/^ rejoined Sally, scornfully, 
'^so it wasn^t proved to me. I ask something more.^^ 
^^More, Sally?” 

'^Yes, more. Aunt Mitty, a thousand times and ten 
thousand times. What do I care for a dead arm that 
fought for a dead king ? Both are dust to-day, and I 
am alive. No, no, give me, not honour and loyalty 
that have been dead five hundred years, but truth and 
courage that I can turn to to-day, — not chivalric 
phrases that are mere empty sound, but honesty and a 
strong arm that I can lean on.” 

Miss Matoaca’s head had dropped as if from weari- 
ness over her thin breast, which palpitated under the 
piece of old lace, like the breast of a wounded bird. 
Then, as the girl stopped and caught her breath sharply 
from sheer stress of feeling, the little lady looked up 
again and straightened herself with a gesture of pride. 

^^Do not make the mistake, Sally,” she said, ^^of 
thinking that a humble birth means necessarily greater 
honesty than a high one. Generations of refinement 
are the best material for character-building, and you 
might as easily find the qualities you esteem in a 
gentleman of your own social position.” 

might, Aunt Matoaca; but, as a matter of fact, 
have I? Until you have seen a man fight can you 
know him? Is family tradition, after all, as good a 
school as the hard world? A life like Ben’s does not 
always make a man good, I know, but it has made him 
so. If this were not true — if any one could prove to 
me that he had been false or cruel to any living creature 


IN WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND 


205 


man, woman, or animal — I^d give him up to-day 
and not break my heart — 

It was true, I knew it as she spoke, and I could 
have knelt to her. 

You are blind, Sally, blind and rash as your mother 
before you,’’ returned Miss Mitty. 

^'No, Aunt Mitty, it is you who are blind — who see 
by the old values that the world has long since out- 
grown — who think you can assign a place to a man 
and say to him, 'You belong there and cannot come 
out of it.’ But, oh. Aunt Matoaca, surely you, who 
have sacrificed so much for what you believe to be right, 
■— who have placed principle before any claims of blood, 
surely you will uphold me — ” 

"My child, my child,” replied the poor lady, with a 
sob, "I placed principle first, but never emotion — 
never emotion.” 

"Poor Sarah was the only one of us who gave up 
everything for the sake of an emotion,” added Miss 
Mitty, "and what did it bring her except misery?” 

Our cause was lost — we saw it at the same instant — 
and again Sally gave me her hand and stood side by 
side with me in the firelight. 

"I am sorry, dear aunts,” she said gently, and 
turning to me, she added slowly and clearly, "I will 
marry you a year from to-day, if you will wait, Ben.” 

"I will wait for you, whether you marry me or not, 
forever,” I answered ; and bowing silently, I turned and 
left the room, while Sally went down again on her knees. 

Once outside, I drew a long breath of air, sharp with 
the scent of the sycamore, and stood gazing up at the 
clear sunset beyond the silvery boughs. It was good to 


206 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


be out of those mouldering traditions, that atmosphere 
of an all-enveloping past; good, too, to be out of the 
tapestried room, away from the grave, fixed smiles of 
the dead Blands and Fairfaxes and the close, sweet 
smell of the burning cedar. There I dared not step 
with my full weight, lest I should ruthlessly tread on a 
sentiment, or bring down a moth-eaten tradition upon 
my head. I was for the hard, bright world, and the 
future; there in that cedar-scented room, sat the 
two ladies, forever guarding the faded furniture and 
the crumbling past. The pathetic contradiction of Miss 
Matoaca returned to me, and I laughed aloud. Miss 
Matoaca, who worked for the emancipation of women, 
while she herself was the slave of an ancestry of men 
who oppressed women, and women who loved oppres- 
sion ! Miss Matoaca, whose mind, long and narrow 
like her face, could grasp but a single idea and reject the 
sequence to which it inevitably led ! I wondered if she 
meant to emancipate ^Tadies^^ merely, or if her prin- 
ciples could possibly overleap her birthright of caste? 
Was she a gallant martyr to the inequalities of sex, 
who still clung, trembling, to the inequalities of society ? 
She would go to the stake, I felt sure, for the cause of 
womanhood, but she would go supported by the serene 
conviction that she was ''a lady.'^ The pathos of it, 
and the mockery, checked the laugh in my throat. 
To how many of us, after all, was it given to discern, 
not only immediate effects, but universal relations as 
well? To the General? To myself? What did we 
see except the possible opportunity, the room for the 
ego, the adjustment to selfish ends? Yet our school 
was the world. Should we, then, expect that little lady, 


IN WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND 


207 


with her bright eyes and her withered roseleaf cheeks, to 
look farther than the scented firelight in which she sat? 
I felt a tenderness for her, as I felt a tenderness for all 
among whom Sally moved. The house in which she 
lived, the threshold she had crossed, the servants who 
surrounded her, were all bathed for me in the rosy light 
of her lamps. Common day did not shine there. I was 
but twenty-seven, and my eyes could still find romance 
in the rustle of her skirt and in the curl of her eyelash. 

In the little office, where the curtains were drawn and 
the green-shaded lamp already lit, I found Dr. Theophh 
lus sitting over his evening mint julep, the solitary dis> 
sipation in which I had ever seen him indulge. His 
strong, ruddy face, with its hooked nose and illuminat- 
ing smile, was still the face of a middle-aged man, 
though he had passed, a year ago, his seventieth 
birthday. At his feet. Waif, a stray dog, rescued in 
memory of Robin, the pointer, was curled up on a rug. 

Well, my boy,'^ he said cheerily, ^^youVe had a good 
day, I hope?” 

good day, doctor, IVe been in heaven,” 1 
answered. 

His smile shone out, clear and bright, as it did at a 
patient’s bedside. 'HVe been there, too, Ben,” he 
responded, “forty years ago.” 

“Then why didn’t you stay, sir?” 

“Because it isn’t given to any man to stay longer than 
a few minutes. Ah, my boy, you are the mixture of a 
fighter and a dreamer.” 

“But suppose,” I blushed, for I was a reserved man, 
though few people were reserved with Dr. Theophilus, 
“suppose that your heaven is a woman?” 


208 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Has it ever been anything else to a man since Adam 
he asked. ^^Every man^s heaven, and most men’s hell, 
is a woman, my boy. Why, look at old George Boling- 
broke now ! He’s no longer young, and he’s certainly 
no longer handsome, yet I’ve seen him, in his day, 
stand up straight and tall in church at Miss Matoaca 
Bland’s side, and look perfectly happy because he could 
sing from the same hymn-book. Then a week later, 
when she’d thrown him over, I saw him jump up at a 
supper, and drink champagne out of the slipper of 
some variety actress.” 

^^Yet she was right, I suppose, to throw him over?” 

^^Oh, she was right, I’m not questioning that she was 
right,” he responded hastily; ^‘but it isn’t always the 
woman who is right, Ben,” he added, 'Hhat makes a 
man’s heaven.” 

^^The poor little lady had no slipperful of champagne 
to fall back on,” I suggested. 

“It’s a pity she hadn’t — for it’s as true as the 
Gospel, that George Bolingbroke drove her into all this 
nonsense about the equality of sexes. Equality, in- 
deed ! A man doesn’t want to make love to an equal, 
but to an angel ! Bless my soul, I don’t know to save 
my life, what to think of Miss Matoaca, except that 
she’s crazy. That’s the kindest thing I can say for her. 
She’s gone now and got into correspondence with 
some bloodthirsty, fire-eating woman’s rights advocates 
up North, and she’s actually taken to distributing 
their indecent pamphlets. She had the face to leave one 
on my desk this morning. I’d just taken it in the tongs 
before you came in and put it into the fire. There are 
the ashes of it,” he added sardonically, waving his 


m WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND 


209 


silver goblet in the direction of some grey shreds of 
paper in the fireplace. 

the same, doctor, she may be crazy, but I 
respect her.^^ 

Respect her? Respect Miss Matoaca Bland? Of 
course you respect her, sir. Even George Bolingbroke, 
bitter as he is, respects her from his boots up. She^s 
the embodiment of honour, and if there^s a man alive 
who doesn^t respect the embodiment of honour, be it 
male or female, he ought — he ought to be taken out 
and horsewhipped, sir ! Her own sister, poor Miss Mitty, 
has the greatest veneration for her, though she canH 
help lying awake at night and wondering where those 
crazy principles will lead her next. If they lead her 
to a quagmire, she^ll lift her skirts and step in, Ben, 
there^s no doubt of that — and what Miss Mitty fears 
now is that, since she^s got hold of these abolition 
sheets, they^ll lead her to the public platform — ” 
^^You mean she’d get up and speak in public? She 
couldn’t to save her head.” 

You’d better not conclude that Miss Matoaca can’t 
do anything until you’ve seen her try it,” replied the 
doctor indignantly. ^‘1 suppose you’d think she 
couldn’t bombard a political meeting, with not a 
woman to help her. Yet last winter she went down 
to the Legislature, in her black silk dress and poke 
bonnet, and tried to get her obnoxious measures 
brought before a committee.” 

^^Was she laughed at?” I demanded angrily. 

'^Good Lord, no. They are gentlemen, even if they 
are politicians, and they know a lady even if she’s 
cracked.” 


210 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^And is she entirely alone? Has she no supporter?^^ 
^^As far as I know, my boy, Matoaca Bland is the 
only blessed thing in the state that cares a continental 
whether women are emancipated or not/' 

He lifted the silver goblet to his lips, and drank long 
and deeply, while the rustle of Mrs. Clay's skirts was 
heard at his office door. After a sharp rap, she entered 
in her bustling way, and presented me with a second 
julep, deliciously frosted and fragrant. She was a 
small, very alert old lady, wearing a bottle-green 
alpaca, made so slender in the waist that it caused her 
to resemble one of her own famous pickled cucumbers. 
^^Theophilus," she began in a crisp, high voice, 
hope you have sent in those bills, as you promised 
me?" 

^^Good Lord, Tina," responded the doctor, with a 
burst of irritation, ^4sn't it bad enough to be sick 
without being made to pay for it ? " 

^^You promised me, Theophilus." 

promised you I'd send bills to the folks I'd cured, 
but, when I came to think of it, how was I to know, 
Tina, that I'd cured any?" 

At least you dosed them? " 

'^Yes, I dosed them," he admitted; '^but taking 
medicine isn't a pleasure that I'd like to pay for." 

Turning away, she rustled indignantly through the 
door, and Dr. Theophilus, as he returned to the rim of 
his silver goblet, gave me a sly wink over his sprigs of 
mint. 

^^Yes, Ben, it isn't always the woman who is right 
that makes a man's heaven," he said. « 


CHAPTER XVII 


IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE 

The winter began with a heavy snow-storm and 
ended in a long April rain, and in all those swiftly 
moving months I had seen Sally barely a dozen times. 
Not only my pride, but Miss Mitty^s rigid commands 
had kept me from her house, and the girl had promised 
that for the first six months she would not meet me 
except by chance. 

^Hn the spring — oh, in the spring,^’ she wrote, 
shall be free. My promise was given and I could not 
recall it, but I believe now that it was pride, not love, 
that made them exact it. Do you know, I sometimes 
think that they do not love me at all. They have both 
told me that they would rather see me dead than mar- 
ried, as they call it, beneath me. Beneath me, indeed ! 
Ah, dearest, dearest, how can one lower one^s self to a 
giant? When I think of all that you are, of all that 
you have made yourself, I feel so humble and proud. 
The truth is, Ben, I’m not suffering half so much from 
love as I am from indignation. If it keeps up, some 
day I’ll burst out like Aunt Matoaca, for I’ve got it in 
me. And she of all people ! Why, she goes about in 
her meek, sanctified manner distributing pamphlets 
on the emancipation of woman, and yet she actually 
told me the other day that, of course, she would prefer 
211 


212 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


to have only ladies’ permitted to vote. ^In that 
case, however,’ she added, should desire to restrict 
the franchise to gentlemen, also.’ Did you ever in 
your whole life hear of anything so absurd, and she 
really meant it. She’s a martyr, and filled with a holy 
zeal to get burned or racked. But it’s awful, every bit 
of it. Oh, lift me up, Ben ! Lift me up !” And in a 
postscript, ^‘What does the General say to you? Aunt 
Mitty has told the General.” 

The General had said nothing to me, but when I 
drove him up from his office the next day, he invited 
me to dine with him, and talked incessantly through 
the three simple courses about the prospects of the 
National Oil Company. 

^^So you’re sweeping the whole South?” he said. 

^^Yes, Sam has made a big thing of it. We’ve 
knocked out everybody else in the oil business in this 
part of the world.” 

‘^Mark my word, then, you’ve been cutting into the 
interest of the oil trust, and it will come along presently 
and try to knock you out. When it does, Ben, make it 
pay, make it pay.” 

‘^Oh, I’ll make it pay,” I answered. “The consoli- 
dated interests may sweep out the independent com- 
panies, but they can’t overturn the Great South Mid- 
land and Atlantic Railroad.” 

“It’s the road, of course, that has made such a 
success possible.” 

“Yes, it’s the road — everything is the road. General.” 

“And to think that when I got control of it, it was 
bankrupt.” 

Rising from the table he took my arm, and limped 


IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE 


213 


painfully into his study, where he lit a cigar and sank 
back in his easy chair. 

'"Look here, Ben,'’ he began suddenly, with a change 
of tone, what's this trouble brewing between you and 
Miss Mitty Bland?" 

'^There's no trouble, sir, except that her niece has 
promised to marry me." 

^ Promised to marry you, eh ? Sally Mickleborough ? 
Are you sure it's Sally Mickleborough?" 

'^I'm hardly likely to be mistaken. General, about 
the identity of my future wife." 

''No, I suppose you ain't," he admitted, "but, 
good Lord, Ben, how did you make her do it?" 

"I didn't make her. She was good enough to do it 
of her own accord." 

"So she did it of her own accord? Well, confound 
you, boy, how did it ever occur to you to ask her?" 

"That's what I can't answer. General, I don't believe 
it ever occurred to me any more than it occurred to me 
to fall in love with her." 

"You've fallen in love with Sally Mickleborough, 
Miss Matoaca's niece. She refused George, you know? " 

I replied that I didn't know it, but I never supposed 
that she would engage herself to two men at the same 
time. 

"And she's seriously engaged to you?" he demanded, 
still unconvinced. "Are you precious sure she isn't 
flirting? Girls will flirt, and I don't reckon you've 
had much experience of 'em. Why, even Miss Mitty 
was known to flirt in a prim, stiff-necked fashion in her 
time, and as for Sarah Bland, they say she promised to 
marry a whole regiment before the battle of Seven 


214 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Pines. A little warning beforehand ainH going to do 
any harm, Ben.’’ 

^^I’m much obliged to you, General, but I don’t think 
in this case it’s needed. Sally is staunch and true.” 

^ ^ Sally ? Do you call her ^ Sally’ ? It used to be the 
custom to address the lady you were engaged to as 
'Miss Sally’ up to the day of the marriage.” 

I laughed and shook my head. "Oh, we move fast ! ” 

"Yes, I’m an old man,” he admitted sadly, "and I 
was brought up in a different civilisation. It’s funny, 
my boy, how many customs were swept away with the 
institution of slavery.” 

"There’d have been little room for me in those days.” 

"Oh, you’d have got into some places quick enough, 
but you’d never have crossed the Blands’ threshold when 
they lived down on James River. There isn’t much of 
that nonsense left now, but Miss Mitty has got it and 
Theophilus has got it; and, when all’s said, they 
might have something considerably worse. Why, look 
at Miss Matoaca. When I first saw her you’d never 
have imagined there was an idea inside her head.” 

"I can understand that she must have been very 
pretty.” 

"Pretty? She was as beautiful as an angel. And 
to think of her distributing those damned woman’s 
rights pamphlets ! She left one on my desk,” he added, 
sticking out his lower lip like a crying child, and wiping 
his bloodshot eyes on the hem of his silk handkerchief. 
"I tell you if she’d had a husband this would never 
have happened.” 

"We can’t tell — it might have been worse, if she 
believes it.” 


IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE 


215 


Believes what, sir?^^ gasped the great man, enraged. 

Believes that outlandish Yankee twaddle about a 
woman wanting any rights except the right to a hus- 
band ! Do you think she^d be running round loose in 
this crackbrained way if she had a home she could stay 
in and a husband she could slave over? I tell you 
there^s not a woman alive that ain^t happier with a bad 
husband than with none at all.^^ 

That’s a comfortable view, at any rate.” 

‘^View? It’s not a view, it’s a fact — and what 
business has a lady got with a view anyway? If 
Miss Matoaca hadn’t got hold of those heathenish 
views, she’d be a happy wife and mother this very 
minute.” 

‘^Does it follow, General, that she would have been 
a happy one?” I asked a little unfairly. 

^^Of course it follows. Isn’t every wife and mother 
happy? What more does she want unless she’s a 
Yankee Abolitionist? ” 

Who’s a Yankee?” enquired young George, in his 
amiable voice from the hall. ^^I’m surprised to hear 
you calling names when the war is over, sir.” 

^^I wasn’t calling names, George. I was just saying 
that Miss Matoaca Bland was a Yankee. Did you ever 
hear of a Virginia lady who wasn’t content to be what 
the Lord and the men intended her? ” 

'^No, sir, I never did — but it seems to me that 
Miss Matoaca has managed to secure a greater share 
of your attention than the more amenable Virginia 
ladies.” 

''Well, isn’t it a sad enough sight to see any lady 
going cracked? ” retorted the General, hotly; "do you 


216 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

know, George, that Sally Mickleborough — he says he's 
sure it's Sally Mickleborough — has promised to marry 
Ben Starr?" 

'^Oh, it's Sally all right," responded George, ^^she 
has just told me." 

He came over and held out his hand, smiling pleas- 
antly, though there was a hurt look in his eyes. 

congratulate you, Ben," he observed in his easy, 
good-natured way, ^Hhe best man comes in ahead." 

His face wore the frown, not from temper, but from 
pain, that I had seen on it at the club when his favourite 
hunter had dropped dead, and he had tried to appear 
indifferent. He was a superb horseman, a typical man 
about town, a bit of a sport, also, as Dr. Theophilus said. 
I knew he loved Sally, just as I had known he loved his 
hunter, by a sympathetic reading of his character rather 
than by any expression of regret on his long, highly 
coloured, slightly wooden countenance, with its set 
mouth over which drooped a mustache so carefully 
trimmed that it looked almost as if it were glued on 
his upper lip. 

^^By the way, uncle, have you heard the last news?'' 
he asked, Barclay is buying all the A. P. & C. Stock 
he can lay hands on. It's selling at — " 

Hello! What's that? Barclay, did you say? 1 
knew it was coming, and that he'd spring it. Here, 
Hatty, give me my cape, I'm going back to the office !" 

'^George, George, the doctor told you not to excite 
yourself," remonstrated Miss Hatty, appearing in the 
doorway with a glass of medicine in her hand. 

Excite myself? Pish! Tush !" retorted the Gen- 
eral, ain't a bit more excited than you are yourself. 


IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE 


217 


Do you think if I hadn^t had a cool head they’d have 
made me president of the South Midland ? But I tell 
you Barclay’s trying to get control of the A. P. & C., 
and I’ll be blamed if he shall ! Do you want him to 
snatch a railroad out of my very mouth, madam?” 

By this time he had got into his cape and slouch hat, 
turning at the last moment to swallow Miss Hatty’s 
dose of medicine with a wry mouth. Then with one 
arm in George’s and one in mine, he descended the 
steps and limped as far as the car line on Main Street. 

On that same afternoon I walked out to meet Sally 
on her ride in one of the country roads to what was 
called ^Hhe Pump House,” and when she had dis- 
mounted, we strolled together along the little path 
under the scarlet buds of young maples. At the end 
of the path there was a rude bench placed beside the 
stream, which broke from the dam above with a 
sound that was like laughing water. The grass was 
powdered with small spring flowers, and overhead a 
sycamore drooped its silvery branches to the spark- 
ling waves. Spring was in the air, in the scarlet buds 
of maples, in the song of birds, in the warm wind that 
played on Sally’s flushed cheek and lifted a loosened 
curl on her forehead. And spring was in my heart, too, 
as I sat there beside her, on the old bench, with her 
hand in mine. 

^^You will marry me in November, Sally?” 

^^On the nineteenth of November, as I promised. 
Aunt Mitty and Aunt Matoaca have forbidden me to 
mention your name to them, so I shall walk with you 
to church some morning — to old Saint J ohn’s, I 
think, Ben.” 


218 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

^^Then may God punish me if I ever fail you/^ I 
answered. 

Her look softened. “You will never fail me.'' 

“You will trust me now and in all the future 

“Now and in all the future.” 

As we strolled back a little later to her horse that 
was tethered to a maple on the roadside, I told her of 
the success of the National Oil Company and of the 
possibility that I might some day be a rich man. 

“As things go in the South, sweetheart, I'm a rich 
man now for my years.” 

“I am glad for your sake, Ben, but I have never ex- 
pected to have wealth, you know.” 

“ All the same I want you to have it, I want to give 
it to you.” 

“Then I'll begin to love it for your sake — if it means 
that to you?” 

“It means nothing else. But what do you think it 
will mean to your aunts next November?” 

She shook her head, while I untethered Dolly, the 
sorrel mare. 

“They haven't a particle of worldliness, either of 
them, and I don't believe it will make any great dif- 
ference if we have millions. Of course if you were, 
for instance, the president of the South Midland they 
would not have refused to receive you, but they would 
have objected quite as strongly to your marrying into 
the family. What you are yourself might concern 
them if they were inviting you to dinner, but when it 
is a question of connecting yourself with their blood, 
it is what your father was that affects them. I really 
believe,” she finished half angrily, half humorously; 


IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE 


219 


*Hhat Aunt Mitty — not Aunt Matoaca — would hon- 
estly rather I^d marry a well-born drunkard or libertine 
than you, whom she calls ^ quite an extraordinary-look- 
ing young man/^^ 

^^Then if they can neither be cajoled nor bought, I 
see no hope for them,^' I replied, laughing, as she 
sprang from my hand into her saddle. 

The red flame of the maple was in her face as she 
looked back at me. Everything will come right, 
Ben, if we only love enough,” she said. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE PRINCIPLES OF MISS MATOACA 

When I walked down to the office now, I began 
be pointed out as ^Hhe Generals wonderful boy 
Invitations to start companies, or to directorships 
innumerable boards, were showered upon me, and a 
venturous promoters of vain schemes sought despe 
ately to shelter themselves behind my growing cred; 
Then, in the following October, the consolidated c 
interests bought out my business at my own pric 
and I awoke one glorious morning to the knowledj 
that my fortune was made. 

^Hf youVe going to swell, Ben, now’s the time 
said the General, ^^and out you go.” 

But my training had been in a hard school, and 1 
the end of the month he had ceased to enquire in t' 
mornings ^^if my hat still fitted my head.” 

You’ll have your ups and downs, Ben, like t! 
rest of us,” he said, ^^but the main thing is, let yo 
fortunes see-saw as they may, always keep your ey 
on a level. By the way, I saw Sally Mickleborou} 
last night, and when I asked her why she fell in lo 
with you, she replied it was because she saw you pushi^ 
a wheel up a hill. Now there’s a woman with a reas^ 
— you’d better look sharp, or she’ll begin talking pc^ 
tics presently like her Aunt Matoaca. What do y^ 
think I found on my desk this morning ? A pamphL 
220 1 


THE PRINCIPLES OF MISS MATOACA 


221 


pdressed in her handwriting, about the presidential 
Wction/' Then his tone softened. ^^So Sally^s going 
Ija marry you in spite of her aunts ? Well, she^s a good 
jlirl, a brave girl, and I^m proud of her.^^ 

I When I went home to supper, I was to have a dif- 
ferent opinion from Dr. Theophilus. 

! ^‘1 saw Sally Mickleborough to-day, Ben, when I 
[jailed on Miss Matoaca, — [that poor lady gets flightier 
every day, she left a pamphlet here this morning 
[about the presidential election] — and the girl told me 
in the few minutes I saw her in the hall, that she meant 
to marry you next month. 

“She will do me that great honour, doctor.’^ 

“Well, I regret it, Ben ; I canT conceal from you that 
regret it. You^re a good boy, and I^m proud of you, 
•ut I donT like to see. young folks putting themselves 
1 opposition to the judgment of their elders. I^m 
n orthodox believer in the claims of blood, you know.^’ 

“And is there nothing to be said for the claims of 
^ve?^^ 

“The claims of moonshine, Ben,^^ observed Mrs. 
Clay in her sharp voice, looking up from a pair of yarn 
socks she was knitting for the doctor; “you know I’m 
fond of you, but when you begin to talk of the claims 
of love driving a girl to break with her family, I feel 
like boxing your ears.” 

“You see, Tina is a cynic,” remarked Dr. Theophilus, 
smiling, “and I don’t doubt that she has her excellent 
reasons, as usual ; most cynics have. A woman, how- 
ever, has got to believe in love to the point of lunacy 
or become a scoffer. What I contend, now, is that 
love isn’t moonshine, but that however solid a thing 


222 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


it may be, it isn^t, after all, as solid as one^s duty to 
one^s family/^ 

course I can^t argue with you, doctor. I know 
little of the unit you call Hhe family’; but I should 
think the first duty of the family would be to consider 
the happiness of the individual.” 

^^And do you think, Ben, that you are the only per- 
son who is considering Sally’s happiness?” 

^‘1 know that I am considering it ; for the rest I can’t 
speak.” 

firmly believe,” broke in Mrs. Clay, ^Hhat Sally’s 
behaviour has helped to drive Matoaca Bland clean out 
of her wits. She’s actually sent me one of her leaflets, 

’ — what do you think of that, Theophilus ? — to me, 
the most refined and retiring woman on earth.” 

What I’d say, Tina, is that you aren’t half as refined 
and retiring as Miss Matoaca,” chuckled the doctor. 

^^That is merely the way she dresses,” rejoined Mrs. 
Clay stiffly ; ^Tt is her poke bonnet and black silk mantle 
that deceives you. As for me, I can call no woman 
truly refined who does not naturally avoid the society 
of men.” 

^^Well, Tina, I had a notion that all of you were 
pretty fond of it, when it comes to that.” 

^^Not of the society of men, Theophilus, but of the 
select attentions of gentlemen.” 

^^I’m not taking up for Miss Matoaca,” pursued the 
good man; can’t conscientiously do that, and I’m 
more concerned at this minute about the marriage of 
Ben and Sally. You may smile at me as superstitious, 
if you please, but I never yet saw a marriage turn out 
happily that was made in defiance of family feeling.” 


THE PRINCIPLES OF MISS MATOACA 


223 


As I could make no reply to this, except to put for- 
ward a second time what Mrs. Clay had tartly called 
^Hhe claims of moonshine, i bade the doctor good- 
night, and going upstairs to my room, sat down beside 
the small square window, which gave on the garden, 
with its miniature box borders and its single clipped 
yew-tree, over which a young moon was rising. 
mixture of a fighter and a dreamer, the old man had 
once called me, and it seemed to me now that some- 
thing apart from the mere business of living and the 
alert man of affairs, brooded in me over the young 
moon and the yew-tree. 

A letter from Sally had reached me a few hours be- 
fore, and taking it from my pocket, I turned to the 
lamp and read it for the sixth time with a throbbing 
heart. 

You ask me if I am happy, dearest, she wrote, 
and I answer that I am happy, with a still, deep hap- 
piness, over which a hundred troubles and cares ripple 
like shadows on a lake. But oh ! poor Aunt Mitty, 
with her silent hurt pride in her face, and poor Aunt 
Matoaca, with the strained, unnatural brightness in 
her eyes, and her cheeks so like rose leaves that have 
crumpled. Oh, Ben, I believe Aunt Matoaca is living 
over again her own romance, and it breaks my heart. 
Last night I went into her room, and found her with her 
old yellowed wedding veil and orange blossoms laid 
out on the bed. She tried to pretend that she was 
straightening her cedar chests, but she looked so little 
and pitiable — if you could only have seen her ! I 
wonder what she would be now if the General had been 
a man like you? How grateful I am, how profoundly 


224 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


thankful with my whole heart that I am marrying a 
man that I can trust 

^^That I can trust Her words rang in my ears, 
and I heard them again, clear and strong, the next 
morning, when I met Miss Matoaca as I was on my way 
to my office. She was coming slowly up Franklin 
Street, her arms filled with packages, and when she 
recognised me, with a shy, startled movement to turn 
aside, a number of leaflets fluttered from her grasp to 
the pavement between us. When I stooped and gath- 
ered them up, her face, under the old-fashioned poke 
bonnet, was brought close to my eyes, and I saw that 
she looked wan and pinched, and that her bright brown 
eyes were shining as if from fever. 

''Mr. Starr, she said, straightening her thin little 
figure as I handed her the leaflets, "IVe wanted for 
some time to speak a word to you on the subject of 
my niece — Miss Mickleborough.’^ 

"Yes, Miss Matoaca.’^ 

"My sister Mitty thought it better that I should 
refrain from doing so, and upon such matters she has 
excellent judgment. It is my habit, indeed, to yield 
to her opinion in everything except a question of con- 
science.’^ 

"Yes?” for again she had paused. "It is very kind 
of you,” I added. 

"I do not mean it for kindness, Mr. Starr. My 
niece is very dear to me; and since poor Sarah’s 
unfortunate experience, we have felt more strongly, 
if possible, about unequal marriages. I know that 
you are a most remarkable young man, but I do not 
feel that you are in any way suited to make the hap- 
piness of our niece — Miss Mickleborough — ” 


THE PRINCIPLES OF MISS MATOACA 


225 


am sorry, Miss Matoaca, but Miss Mickleborough 
thinks differently/^ 

Young people are rarely the best judges in such 
matters, Mr. Starr. 

'^But do you think their elders can judge for them 
they have had experience — yes.^^ 

'^Ah, Miss Matoaca, does our own experience ever 
teach us to understand the experience of others?^' 
^^The Blands have never needed to be taught, 
she returned with pride, ^^that the claims of the family 
are not to be sacrificed to — to a sentiment. Except 
in the case of poor Sarah there has never been a mes- 
alliance in our history. We have always put one thing 
above the consideration of our blood, and that is — a 
principle. If it were a question of conscience, however 
painful it might be to me, I should uphold my niece 
in her opposition to my sister Mitty. I myself have 
opposed her for a matter of principle. 
am aware of it. Miss Matoaca.^’ 

Her withered cheeks were tinged with a delicate rose, 
and I could almost see the working of her long, narrow 
mind behind her long, narrow face. 

should like to leave a few of these leaflets with you, 
Mr. Starr,^^ she said. 

A minute afterwards, when she had moved on with 
her meek, slow walk, I was left standing on the pave- 
ment with her suffrage pamphlets fluttering in my hand. 
Stuffing them hurriedly into my pocket, I went on to 
the office, utterly oblivious of the existence of any prin- 
ciple on earth except the one underlying the immediate 
expansion of the Great South Midland and Atlantic 
Railroad. 

Q 


226 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


A fortnight later I heard that Miss Matoaca had 
begun writing letters to the Richmond Herald’^; and 
I remembered, with an easy masculine complacency, 
the pamphlets I had thrown into the waste basket 
beside the GeneraFs desk. The presidential election, 
with its usual upheaval of the business world, had ar- 
rived ; and that timid little Miss Matoaca should have 
intruded herself into the affairs of the nation did not 
occur to me as possible, until the General informed me, 
while we watched a Democratic procession one after- 
noon, that Miss Mitty had come to him the day before 
in tears over the impropriety of her sister ^s conduct. 

‘^She begged me to remonstrate with Miss Matoaca, 
he pursued, ‘^and by George, I promised her that I 
would. There^s one thing, Ben, IVe never been able 
to stand, and that^s the sight of a woman in tears» 
Of course when youVe made ’em cry yourself, it k 
different; but to have a lady coming to you weeping 
over somebody else — and a lady like Miss Mitty — • 
well, I honestly believe if she’d requested me to give 
her my skin, I’d have tried to get out of it just to oblige 
her.” 

'^Did you go to Miss Matoaca?” I asked, for the 
picture of the General lecturing his old love on the sub- 
ject of the proprieties had caught my attention even 
in the midst of a large Democratic procession that was 
marching along the street. While he rambled on in 
his breaking voice, which had begun to grow weak 
and old, I gazed over his head at the political banners 
with their familiar, jesting inscriptions. 

“I declare, Ben, I’d rather have swallowed a dose of 
medicine,” he went on; ^^you see I used to know Miss 


THE PRINCIPLES OF MISS MATOACA 


227 


Matoaca very well forty years ago — I reckon youVe 
heard of it. We were engaged to be married, and it 
was broken off because of some woman’s rights non- 
sense she’d got in her head.” 

^^Well, it’s hard to imagine your interview of yester- 
day.” 

There wasn’t any interview. I went to her and put 
it as mildly as I could. 'Miss Matoaca,’ I said, 'I’m 
sorry to hear you’ve gone cracked.’” 

"And how did she take it?” 

"'Do you mean my heart or my head. General?’ 
she asked — she had always plenty of spirit, had 
Matoaca, for all her soft looks. 'It’s your head,’ I 
answered. 'Lord knows I’m not casting any reflec- 
tions on the rest of you.’ 'Then it has fared better than 
my heart. General,’ she replied, 'for that was broken.’ 
She looked kind of wild, Ben, as she said it. I don’t 
know what she was talking about, I declare on my 
honour I don’t !” 

A cheer went up from the procession, and an expres- 
sion of eager curiosity came into his face. 

"Can you read that inscription, Ben? My eyes 
ain’t so good as they used to be.” 

"It’s some campaign joke. So your lecture wasn’t 
quite a success?” 

"It would have been if she’d listened to reason.” 

"But she did not, I presume?” 

"She never listened to it in her life. If she had, she 
wouldn’t be a poor miserable old maid at this moment. 
What’s that coming they’re making such a noise about ? 
My God, Ben, if it ain’t Matoaca herself !” 

It was Matoaca, and the breathless horror in the 


228 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


General’s voice passed into my own mind as I looked. 
There she was, in her poke bonnet and her black silk 
mantle, walking primly at the straggling end of the 
procession, among a crowd of hooting small boys and 
gaping negroes. Her eyes, very wide and bright, like 
the eyes of one who is mentally deranged, were fixed 
straight ahead, over the lines of men marching in front 
of her, on the blue sky above the church steeples. 
Under her poke bonnet I saw her meekly parted hair 
and her faded cheeks, flushed now with a hectic colour. 
In one neatly gloved hand her silk skirt was held primly ; 
in the other she carried a little white silk flag, on which 
the staring gold letters were lost in the rippling folds. 
With her eyes on the sky and her feet in the dust, she 
marched, a prim, ladylike figure, an inspired spinster, 
oblivious alike of the hooting small boys and the half- 
compassionate, half-scoffing gazers upon the pave- 
ment. 

^^She’s crazy, Ben,” said the General, and his voice 
broke with a sob. 

For a minute, as dazed as he, I stared blankly at the 
little figure with the white flag. Then bewilderment 
gave place before the call to action, and it seemed to 
me that I saw Sally there in Miss Matoaca, as I had 
seen her in the rising moon over the clipped yew, and 
in the whirlpool of the stock market. Leaving my 
place at the General’s side, I descended the steps at a 
bound, and made my way through the jostling, noisy 
crowd to the little lady in its midst. 

^^Miss Matoaca !” I said. 

For the first time her eyes left the sky, and as she 
looked down, the consciousness of her situation entered 


THE PRINCIPLES OF MISS MATOACA 


229 


into her strained bright eyes. Her composure was lost 
in a birdlike, palpitating movement of terror. 

— I am going as far as the Square, Mr. Starr, 
she replied, as if she were repeating by rote a phrase 
in a strange tongue. 

At my approach the ridicule, somewhat subdued by 
the sense of her helplessness, broke suddenly loose. 
Bending over I offered her my arm, my head still 
uncovered. As the hand holding the white flag 
drooped from exhaustion, I took it, with the banner, 
into my own. 

^^Then Ifll go with you. Miss Matoaca,'^ I responded. 

We started on, took a few measured paces in the line 
of march, and then her strength failing her, she sank 
back, with a pathetic moan of weariness, into my arms. 
Lifting her like a child I carried her out of the street 
and up the steps into the GeneraLs office. Turning at 
a touch as I entered the room, I saw that Sally was at 
my side. 

^HVe sent for Dr. Theophilus,^^ she said. ''There, 
put her on the lounge.’^ 

Kneeling on the floor she began bathing Miss Ma- 
toaca^s forehead with water which somebody had 
brought. The General, his eyes very red and blood- 
shot and his lower lip fallen into a senile droop, was 
trying vainly to fan her with his pocket-handkerchief. 

"We have always feared this would happen,'^ said 
Sally, very quiet and pale. 

"She was talking to me yesterday about her heart,’’ 
returned the General, "and I didn’t know what she 
meant.” 

He bent over, fanning her more violently with his 


230 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


silk handkerchief, and on the lounge beneath, Miss 
Matoaca lay, very prim and maidenly, with her skirt 
folded modestly about her ankles. 

Dr. Theophilus, coming in with the messenger, bent 
over her for a long minute. 

always thought her sense of honour would kill 
her,’' he said at last as he looked up. ♦ 


CHAPTER XIX 


SHOWS THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE 

A WEEK after Miss Matoaca’s funeral, Sally met me 
in one of the secluded streets by the Capitol Square, 
and we walked slowly up and down for an hour in the 
November sunshine. In her black clothes she appeared 
to have bloomed into a brighter beauty, a richer colour. 

^^Why can’t I believe, Sally, that you will really 
marry me a week from to-day?” 

^^A week from to-day. Just you and I in old Saint 
John’s.” 

^^And Miss Mitty, will she not come with you?” 

^^She refuses to let me speak your name to her. It 
V^ould be hard to leave her, Ben, if — if she hadn’t been 
so bitter and stern to me for the last year. I live in the 
same house with her and see nothing of her.” 

thought Miss Matoaca’s death might have softened 

her.” 

Nothing will soften her. Aunt Matoaca’s death 
has hurt her terribly, I know, but — and this is a 
dreadful thing to say — I believe it has hurt her pride 
more than her heart. If the poor dear had died quietly 
in her bed, with her prayer-book on the counterpane, 
Aunt Mitty would have grieved for her in an entirely 
different way. She lives in a kind of stained-glass 
seclusion, and anything outside of that seems to her 
vulgar — even emotion.” 


231 


232 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


‘^How I must have startled her” 

'^You startled her so that she has never had courage 
to face the effect. Think what it must mean to a per- 
son who has lived sixty-five years in an atmosphere of 
stained glass to be dragged outside and made to look 
at the great common sun — ” 

A squirrel, running out from between the iron railing 
surrounding the square, crossed the pavement and 
then sat erect ifi front of us, his bushy tail waving like 
a brush over his ears. While she was bending over to 
speak to it, the Bland surrey turned the corner at a 
rapid pace, and I saw the figure of Miss Mitty, swathed 
heavily in black, sitting very stiff and upright behind 
old Shadrach. As she caught sight of us, she leaned 
slightly forward, and in obedience to her order, the 
carriage stopped the next instant beside the pave- 
ment. 

Sally!’’ she called, and there was no hint in her 
manner that she was aware of my presence. 

'^Yes, Aunt Mitty.” The girl had straightened her- 
self, and stood calmly and without embarrassment 
at my side. 

should like you to come with me to Hollywood.” 
^^Yes, Aunt Mitty.” 

Pausing for an instant, she gave me her hand. Until 
Wednesday, Ben,” she said in a low, clear voice, and 
then entering the surrey, she took her place under the 
fur robe and was driven away. 

The week dragged by like a century, and on Wednes- 
day morning, when I got up and opened my shutters, I 
found that our wedding-day had begun in a slow 
autumnal rain. A thick tent of clouds stretched over- 


SHOWS THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE 


233 


head, and the miniature box in the garden looked like 
flutings of crape on the pebbled walk, which had been 
washed clean and glistening during the night. The 
clipped yew stood dark and sombre as a solitary 
mourner among the blossomless rose-bushes. 

At breakfast Mrs. Clay poured my coffee with a 
rigid hand and an averted face, and Dr. Theophilus 
appeared to find difficulty in keeping up his cheerful 
morning comments. 

miss you, Ben, my boy,^^ he remarked, as he rose 
from the table ; ^4t^s a sad day for me when I lose you.^^ 
hate to lose you, doctor, but I shanT, after all, be 
far off. IVe bought a house, as you know, beyond 
the Park in Franklin Street.^' 

'^The one Jack Montgomery used to live in before 
he lost his money — yes, it is a fine place. Well, you 
have my best wishes, Ben, whatever comes ; you may 
be sure of that. I hope you and Sally will have every 
happiness.^’ 

He shook my hand in his hearty grasp before going 
into his little office, and the next minute I went out 
into the rain, and walked down for a few words with 
the General, before I met Sally under the big sycamore 
at the side gate. I had waited for her but a little while 
when she came out under an umbrella held by Aunt 
Euphronasia, who was to accompany us on our journey 
South in the General's private car. As she entered the 
carriage, I saw that she wore a white dress under her 
long black cloak. 

Mammy wouldn't let me be married in black," she 
said ; “she says it means death or a bad husband." 

“Dar ain' gwine be a bad husband fur dish yer chile,'^ 


234 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


grumbled the old woman, who was evidently full of 
gloomy forebodings, ^^caze she ain^ built wid de kinder 
spine, suh, dat bends esisy” 

^^There^ll be nobody at church?’^ asked Sally. 

‘^Only the General, and I suppose the sexton. '' 
am glad.’^ She leaned forward, we clasped hands, 
and I saw that the eyes she lifted to mine were starry 
and expectant, as they had been that day, so many 
years ago, when she stood between the gate and the 
bed of geraniums in the General's yard. 

The carriage rolled softly over the soaking streets, 
and above the sound of the wheels I heard the patter of 
the rain on the dead leaves in the gutters. I can see 
still a wet sparrow or two that fluttered down from 
the bared branches, and the negro maid sweeping the 
water from the steps in front of the doctor's house. 
There was no wind, and the rain fell in straight elon- 
gated drops like a shower of silvery pine-needles. The 
mixture of a flghter and a dreamer ! On my wedding- 
day, as I sat beside the woman I loved, approaching 
the fulfilment of my desire, I was conscious of a curious 
gravity, of almost a feeling of sadness. The stillness 
without, intensified by the slow, soft fall of the rain on 
the dead leaves, seemed not detached, but at one with 
the inner stillness which possessed alike my heart and 
my brain. I, the man of action, the embodiment of 
worldly success, was awed by the very intensity of my 
love, which added a throb of apprehension to the 
supreme moment of its fulfilment. 

The carriage crawled up the long hill, and stopped 
before the steps leading to the churchyard of Saint 
John's. Like a sombre om.en up went the umbrella in 


SHOWS THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE 


235 


the hands of Aunt Euphronasia; and as I led Sally 
across the pavement to the General, who stood waiting 
under the dripping maples and sycamores, I saw that 
she was very pale, and that her lips trembled when she 
smiled back at me. With her arm in the Generals, 
she passed before me up the walk to the church door, 
while Aunt Euphronasia and I followed under the same 
umbrella a short way behind. 

At the door the minister met us with outstretched 
hands, for he had known us from childhood ; and when 
Aunt Euphronasia had removed the bride ^s moist 
cloak, Sally joined me before the altar, in the square of 
faint light that fell from the windows. The interior 
of the church was very dim, so dim that her white 
dress and the minister's gown seemed the only patches 
of high light in the obscurity. Through the window I 
could see the wet silvery boughs of a sycamore, and, I 
remember still, as if it had been illuminated upon my 
brain, a single bronzed leaf that writhed and twisted 
at the end of a slender branch. Never in my life had 
my mind been so awake to trivial impressions, so acutely 
aware of the external world, so perfectly unable to real- 
ise the profound significance of the words I uttered. 
The sound of the soft rain on the graves outside was in 
my ears, and instead of my marriage, I found myself 
thinking of the day I had seen Sally dancing toward me 
in her red shoes, over the coloured leaves. In those 
few minutes, which changed the course of our two 
lives, it was as if I myself — the man that men knew 
— had been present only in a dream. 

When it was over, the General kissed Sally, and wiped 
his eyes on his silk handkerchief. 


236 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


'^You’re a brave girl, my dear, and I^m proud of 
you/’ he said; ^^you’ve got your mother’s heart and 
your father’s fighting blood, and that’s a good blend- 
ing.” 

“I wish the sun had shone on you,” observed the 
old minister, while I helped her into her cloak; '^but 
we Christians can’t afford to waste regret on heathen 
superstitions. I married your mother,” he added, as 
if there were possible comfort in a proof of the futility 
of omens, ^^on a cloudless morning in June.” 

Sally shivered, and glanced across the churchyard, 
where the water dripped from the bared trees on the 
graves that were covered thickly with sodden leaves. 

^‘The sun may welcome us home,” she replied, with 
an effort to be cheerful; “we shall be back again in a 
fortnight.” 

“And you go South?” asked the minister ner- 
vously, like a man who tries to make conversation be- 
cause his professional duty requires it of him. Then 
the umbrella went up again, and after a good-by to 
the General, we started together down the walk, with 
Aunt Euphronasia following close as a shadow. 

“The rain does not sadden you, sweetheart?” 

“It saddens me, but that does not mean that I am 
not happy.” 

“And you would do it over again? ” 

“I would do it over until — until the last hour of mv 
life.” 

“Oh, Sally, Sally, if I were only sure that I was 
worthy.” 

A light broke in her face, and as she looked up at me, 
I bent over and kissed her under the leafless trees. 


CHAPTER XX 


IN WHICH SOCIETY RECEIVES US 

It was a bright December evening when we returned 
to Richmond; and drove through the frosty air to our 
new home. The house was large and modern, with a 
hideous brown stone front, and af the top of the brown 
stone steps several girl friends of Sally^s were waiting 
to receive us. Beyond them, in the brilliantly lighted 
hall, I saw masses of palms and roses under the oak 
staircase. 

^^Oh, you bad Sally, not even to ask us to your wed- 
ding. And you know how we adore one!^’ cried a 
handsome, dark girl in a riding habit, named Bonny 
Page. ^^How do you do, Mr. Starr? WeTe to call 
you ^Ben’ now because youVe married our cousin.^’ 

I made some brief response, and while I spoke, I felt 
again the old sense of embarrassment, of strangeness 
in my surroundings, that always came upon me in a 
gathering of women — especially of girls. With Sally 
I never forgot that I was a strong man, — with Bonny 
Page I remembered only that I was a plain one. As 
she stood there, with her arm about Sally, and her black 
eyes dancing with fun, she looked the incarnate spirit 
of mischief, — and beside the spirit of mischief I felt 
decidedly heavy. She was a tall, splendid girl, with a 
beautiful figure, — the belle of Richmond and the best 
237 


238 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


horsewoman of the state. I had seen her take a jump 
that had brought my heart to my throat, and come 
down on the other side with a laugh. A little dazzling, 
a little cold, fine, quick, generous to her friends, and 
merciless to her lovers, I had wondered often what 
subtle sympathy had knit Sally and herself so closely 
together. 

You’d always promised that I should be your brides- 
maid,” she remarked reproachfully; she’s hurt us 
dreadfully, hasn’t she, Bessy? And it’s very forgiving 
of us to warm her house and have her dinner ready for 
her.” 

Bessy, the little heroine of the azalea wreath and my 
first party, murmured shyly that she hoped the fur- 
niture was placed right and that the dinner would be 
good. 

'^Oh, you darlings, it’s too sweet of you !” said Sally, 
entering the drawing-room, amid palms and roses, 
with an arm about the neck of each. ^^You know, 
don’t you,” she went on, ^Hhat poor Aunt Mitty’s 
not coming kept me from having even you? How 
is she. Bonny? 0 Bonny, she won’t speak to me.” 

Immediately she was clasped in Bonny’s arms, where 
she shed a few tears on Bonny’s handsome shoulder. 

^^She’U grow used to it,” said little Bessy; ^^but, Sally, 
how did you have the courage?” 

^^Ask Bonny how she had the courage to take that 
five-foot jump.” 

took it with my teeth set and my eyes shut,” said 
Bonny. 

^^Well, that’s how I took Ben, with my teeth set and 
my eyes shut tight.” 


IN WHICH SOCIETY RECEIVES US 239 

^'And I came down with a laugh/^ added Bonny. 

^'So did I — I came down with a laugh. Oh, you 
dears, how lovely the house looks! Here are all the 
bridal roses that I missed and youVe remembered.^^ 
There he blue roses in your room,^' said Bonny; 
mean on the chintz and on the paper.^^ 

“How can I help being happy, when I have blue 
roses. Bonny? Arenh blue roses an emblem of the 
impossible achieved 

Bonnyh dancing black eyes were on me, and I read 
in them plainly the thought, “Yes, I^m going to be 
nice to you because Sally has married you, and Sallyh 
my cousin — even if I canh understand how she came 
to do it.’^ 

No, she couldnh understand, and she never would, 
this I read also. The man that she saw and the man 
that Sally knew were two different persons, drawing 
life from two different sources of sympathy. To her I 
was still, and would always be, the “magnificent ani- 
mal, — a creature of good muscle and sinew, with an 
honest eye, doubtless, and clean hands, but lacking in 
the finer qualities of person and manner that must 
appeal to her taste. Where Sally beheld power, and 
admired. Bonny Page saw only roughness, and won- 
dered. 

Presently, they led her away, and I heard their 
merry voices floating down from the bedrooms above. 
The pink light of the candles on the dinner table in the 
room beyond, the vague, sweet scent of the roses, and 
the warmth of the wood fire burning on the andirons, 
seemed to grow faint and distant, for I was very tired 
with the fatigue of a man whose muscles are cramped 


240 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


from want of exercise. I felt all at once that I had 
stepped from the open world into a place that was too 
small for me. I was a rich man at last, I was the hus- 
band, too, of the princess of the enchanted garden, and 
yet in the midst of the perfume and the soft lights and 
the laughter floating down from above, I saw myself, 
by some freak of memory, as I had crouched homeless 
in the straw under a deserted stall in the Old Market. 
Would the thought of the boy I had been haunt forever 
the man I had become? Did my past add a keener 
happiness to my present, or hang always like a threaten- 
ing shadow above it ? There was a part in my life which 
these girls could not understand, which even Sally, 
whom I loved, could never share with me. How could 
they or she comprehend hunger, who had never gone 
without for a moment ? Or sympathise with the lust of 
battle when they had never encountered an obstacle? 
Already I heard the call of the streets, and my blood 
responded to it in the midst of the scented atmosphere. 
These things were for Sally, but for me was the joy of 
the struggle, the passion to achieve that I might return 
with my spoils and pile them higher and higher before 
her feet. The grasping was what I loved, not the pos- 
session; the instant of triumph, not the fruits of the 
conquest. Love throbbed in my heart, but my mind, 
as if freeing itself from a restraint, followed the Great 
South Midland and Atlantic, covering that night under 
the stars nearly twenty thousand miles of road. The 
elemental man in me chafed under the social curb, 
and I longed at that instant to bear the woman I had 
won out into the rough joys of the world. My muscles 
would soon grow flabby in this scented warmth. The 


IN WHICH SOCIETY RECEIVES US 241 

fighter would war with the dreamer, and I would re- 
gret the short, fierce battle with my competitors in the 
business of life. 

A slight sound made me turn, and I saw Bonny Page 
standing alone in the doorway, and looking straight at 
me with her dancing eyes. 

don’t know you yet, Ben,” she said in the direct, 
gallant manner of a perfect horsewoman, '^but I’m 
going to like you.” 

Please try,” I answered, ^^and I’ll do my best not 
to make it hard.” 

^‘I don’t think it will be hard, but even if it were, I’d 
do it for Sally’s sake. Sally is my darling.” 

'^And mine. So we’re alike in one thing at least.” 

^^I’m perfectly furious with Aunt Mitty. I mean to 
tell her so the next time I’ve taken a high jump.” 

Poor Miss Mitty. How can she help herself ? She 
was born that way.” 

Well, it was a very bad way to be born — to want 
to break Sally’s heart. Do you know, I think it was 
delightful — the way you did it. If I’m ever married, 
I want to run away, too, — only I’ll run away on 
horseback, because that will be far more exciting.” 

She ran on merrily, partly I knew to take my meas- 
ure while she watched me, partly to ease the embar- 
rassment which her exquisite social instinct had at 
once discerned. She was charming, friendly, almost 
affectionate, yet I was conscious all the time that, in 
spite of herself, she was a little critical, a trifle aloof. 
Her perfect grooming, the very fineness of her self- 
possession, her high-bred gallantry of manner, and even 
the shining gloss on her black, beribboned hair, and 


242 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


her high boots, produced in me a sense of remoteness, 
which I found it impossible altogether to overcome. 

In a little while there was a flutter on the staircase, 
and the other girls trooped down, with Sally in their 
midst. She had changed her travelling dress for a 
gown of white, cut low at the neck, and about her 
throat she wore a necklace of pearls I had given her at 
her wedding. There was a bright flush in her face, 
and she looked to me as she had done that day, in her 
red shoes, in Saint John^s churchyard. 

When I came downstairs from my dressing-room, I 
found that the girls had gone, and she was standing 
by the dinner table, with her face bent down over the 
vase of pink roses in the centre. 

*^So we are in our own home, darling, at last,^’ I 
said, and a few minutes later, as I looked across the 
pink candle shades and the roses, and saw her sitting 
opposite to me, I told myself that at last both the 
fighter in me and the dreamer had found the fulfilment 
of their desire. 

After dinner, when I had had my smoke in the li- 
brary, we caught hands and wandered like two children 
over the new house — into the pink and white guest 
room, and then into Sally^s bedroom, where the blue 
roses sprawled over the chintz-covered furniture and 
the silk curtains. A glass door gave on a tiny bal- 
cony, and throwing a shawl about her head and her 
bare shoulders, she went with me out into the frosty 
December night, where a cold bright moon was riding 
high above the church steeples. With my arm about 
her, and her head on my breast, we stood in silence 
gazing over the city, while the sense of her nearness, 


IN WHICH SOCIETY RECEIVES US 


243 


of her throbbing spirit and body, filled my heart with 
an exquisite peace. 

'‘You and I are the world, Ben.^' 

"You are my world, any way.’' 

"If is such a happy world to-night. There is noth- 
ing but love in it — no pain, no sorrow, no disappoint- 
ment. Why doesn’t everybody love, I wonder?” 

"Everybody hasn’t you.” 

"I’m so sorry for poor Aunt Mitty, — she never loved, 
— and for poor Aunt Matoaca, because she didn’t love 
my lover. Oh, you are so strong, Ben; that, I think, 
is why I first loved you ! I see you always in the back- 
ground of my thoughts pushing that wheel up the hill.” 

"That won you. And to think if I’d known you were 
there, Sally, I couldn’t have done it.” 

"That, too, is why I love you, so there’s another 
reason ! It isn’t only your strength, Ben, it is, I be- 
lieve, still more your self-forgetfulness. Then you for- 
got yourself because you thought of the poor horse; 
and again, do you remember the day of Aunt Matoaca’s 
death, when you gave her your arm and took her little 
flag in your hand ? You would have marched all the 
way to the Capitol just like that, and I don’t believe 
you would ever have known that it looked ridiculous 
or that people were laughing at you.” 

"To tell the truth, Sally, I should never have cared.” 

She clung closer, her perfumed hair on my breast. 

"And yet they wondered why I loved you,” she 
murmured; "they wondered why!” 

"Can you guess why I loved you?” I asked. "Was 
it for your red shoes? Or for that tiny scar like a 
dimple I’ve always adored?” 


244 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


never told you what made that/^ she said, after 
a moment. ‘^1 was a very little baby when my father 
got angry with mamma one day — he had been drink- 
ing — and he upset the cradle in which I was asleep.^' 

She lifted her face, and I kissed the scar under the 
white shawl. 

The next day when I came home to luncheon, she told 
me that she had been to her old home to see Miss Mitty* 
couldnT stand the thought of her loneliness, so I 
went into the drawing-room at the hour I knew she 
would be tending her sweet alyssum and Dicky, the 
canary. She was there, looking very thin and old, and, 
Ben, she treated me like a stranger. She wouldnT kiss 
me, and she didnT ask me a single question — only 
spoke of the weather and her flower boxes, as if I had 
called for the first time.^^ 

know, I know,’’ I said, taking her into my arms. 

^^And everybody else is so kind. People have been 
sending me flowers all day. Did you ever see such a 
profusion ? They are all calling, too, — the Fitzhughs, 
the Harrisons, the Tuckers, the Mayos, Jennie Ran- 
dolph came, and old Mrs. Tucker, who never goes any- 
where since her daughter died, and Charlotte Peyton, 
and all the Corbins in a bunch.” Then her tone 
changed. '^Ben,” she said, ‘^1 want to see that little 
sister of yours. Will you take me there this afternoon ?” 

Something in her request, or in the way she uttered 
it, touched me to the heart. 

^H’d like you to see Jessy — she’s pretty enough to 
look at — but I didn’t mean you to marry my family, 
you know.” 

know you didn’t, dear, but I’ve married every- 


IN WHICH SOCIETY RECEIVES US 


245 


thing of yours all the same. If you can spare a few 
minutes after luncheon, well drive down and speak 
to her.^’ 

I could spare the few minutes, and when the carriage 
was ready, she came down in her hat and furs, and we 
went at a merry pace down Franklin Street to the 
boarding-house in which Jessy was living. As we 
drove up to the pavement, the door of the house opened 
and my little sister came out, dressed for walking 
and looking unusually pretty. 

Why, Ben, she^s a beauty said Sally, in a whisper, 
as the girl approached us. To me Jessyes face had 
always appeared too cold and vacant for beauty, in 
spite of her perfect features and the brilliant fairness 
of her complexion. Even now I missed the glow of 
feeling or of animation in her glance, as she crossed the 
pavement with her slow, precise walk, and put her 
hand into Sally^s. 

'^How do you do? It is very kind of you to come,” 
she said in a measured, correct voice. 

'^Of course I came, Jessy. I am your new sister, 
and you must come and stay with me when I am out 
of mourning.” 

Thank you,” responded Jessy gravely, ‘‘1 should 
like to.” 

The cold had touched her cheek until it looked like 
tinted marble, and under her big black hat her blond 
hair rolled in natural waves from her forehead. 

^^Are you happy here, Jessy?” I asked. 

^^They are very kind to me. There’s an old gentle- 
man boarding here now from the West. He is going 
to give us a theatre party to-night. They say he has 


246 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


millions.” For the first time the glow of enthusiasm 
shone in her limpid blue eyes. 

good use to make of his millions,” I laughed. 
‘'Do you hear often from President, Jessy?” 

The glow faded from her eyes and they grew cold 
again. "He writes such bad letters,” she answered, 
"I can hardly read them.” 

"Never forget,” I answered sternly, "that he denied 
himself an education in order that you might become 
what you are.” 

While I spoke the door of the house opened again, 
and the old gentleman she had alluded to came gingerly 
down the steps. He had a small, wizened face, and he 
wore a fur-lined overcoat, in which it was evident that 
he still suffered from the cold. 

"This is my brother and my sister, Mr. Cottrel,” 
said Jessy, as he came slowly toward us. 

He bowed with a pompous manner, and stood twirl- 
ing the chain of his eye-glasses. "Yes, yes, I have 
heard of your brother. His name is well known al- 
ready,” he answered. "I congratulate, sir,” he 
added, "not the 'man who got rich quickly,’ as I’ve 
heard you called, but the fortunate brother of a 
beautiful sister.” 

"What a perfectly horrid old man,” remarked Sally, 
some minutes later, as we drove back again. "I think, 
Ben, we’ll have to take the little sister. She’s a beauty.” 

"If she wasn’t so everlastingly cold and quiet.” 

"It suits her style — that little precise way she has. 
There’s a look about her like one of Perugino’s saints.” 

Then the carriage stopped at the office, and I re- 
turned, with a high heart, to the game. 


CHAPTER XXI 


I AM THE WONDER OF THE HOUR 

During the first year of my marriage I was already 
spoken of as the most successful speculator in the state. 
The whirlpool of finance had won me from the road, 
and I had sacrificed the single allegiance to the bolder 
moves of the game. Yet if I could be bold, I was 
cautious, too, — and that peculiar quality which 
the General called financial genius,” and the world 
named the luck of the speculator,” had enabled me 
to act always between the two dangerous extremes of 
timidity and rashness. '^To get up when others sat 
down, and to sit down when others got up,” I told the 
General one day, had been the rule by which I had 
played. 

^^They were talking of you at the club last night, 
Ben,” he said. “You were the only one of us who had 
sense enough to load up with A. P. & C. stock when it 
was selling at 80, and now it^s jumped up to 150. 
Jim Randolph was fool enough to remark that you^d 
had the easiest success of any man he knew.” 

“Easy? Does he think so?” 

“^So you call that easy, gentlemen?^ I responded. 
' Well, I tell you that boy has sweated for it since he 
was seven years old. It^s the only way, too, I'm sure 
of it. If you want to succeed, you've got to begin by 
sweating."' 


247 


248 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Thank you, General, but I suppose most things 
look easy until youVe tried them/^ 

^^It doesnT look easy to me, Ben, when IVe seen 
you at it all day and half the night since you were a 
boy. What I said to those fellows at the club is the 
Gospel truth — there^s but one way to get anything in 
this world, and that is by sweating for it.^^ 

We were in his study, to which he was confined by an 
attack of the gout, and at such times he loved to ramble 
on in his aging, reminiscent habit. 

^^You know. General,'^ I said, “that they want me to 
accept the presidency of the Union Bank in Jennings^ 
place. IVe been one of the directors, you see, for the 
last three or four years. 

^^You^d be the youngest bank president in the 
country. It^s a good thing, and you^d control enough 
money to keep you awake at night. But remember, 
Ben, as my dear old coloured mammy used to say to 
me, Vo hatch first ainV always to crow last.'^^ 

“Do you call it hatching or crowing to become 
president of the Union Bank?^^ 

“That depends. If youVe shrewd and safe, as I 
think you are, it may turn out to be both. It would 
be a good plan, though, to say to yourself every time 
you come up Franklin Street, We toted potatoes up 
this hill, and not my own potatoes either.^ It’s good 
for you, sir, to remember it, damned good.” 

“I’m not likely to forget it — they were heavy.” 

“It was the best thing that ever happened to you — 
it was the making of you. There’s nothing I know so 
good for a* man as to be able to remember that he toted 
somebody else’s potatoes. Now, look at that George 


I AM THE WONDER OF THE HOUR 249 

of mine. He never toted a potato in his life — not 
even his own. If he had, he might have been a bank 
president to-day instead of the pleasant, well-dressed 
club-man he is, with a mustache like wax- work. 
IVe an idea, Ben, but don^t let it get any farther, that 
he never got over not having Sally, and that took the 
spirit out of him. She’s well, ain’t she?” 

''Yes, she’s very well and more beautiful than ever.” 

"Hasn’t developed any principles yet, eh? I always 
thought they were in her.” 

"None that interfere with my comfort at any 
rate.” 

"Keep an eye on her and keep her occupied all the 
time. That’s the way to deal with a woman who has 
ideas — don’t leave her a blessed minute to sit down 
and hatch ’em out. Pet her, dress her, amuse her, and 
whenever she begins to talk about a principle, step 
out and buy her a present to take her mind off it. 
Anything no bigger than a thimble will turn a woman’s 
mind in the right direction if you spring it on her like 
a surprise. Ah, that’s the way her Aunt Matoaca 
ought to have been treated. Poor Miss Matoaca, she 
went wrong for the want of a little simple management 
like that. You never saw Miss Matoaca Bland when 
she was a girl, Ben?” 

"I have heard she was beautiful.” 

"Beautiful ain’t the word, sir! I tell you the first 
time I ever saw her she came to church in a white 
poke bonnet lined with cherry-coloured silk, and her 
cheeks exactly a match to her bonnet lining.” He got 
out his big silk handkerchief, and blew his nose loudly, 
after which he wiped his eyes, and sat staring moodily 


250 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


at his foot bandaged out of all proportion to its 
natural size. 

^^Who^d have thought to look at her then/^ he pur- 
sued, ^Hhat she^d go cracked over this Yankee aboli- 
tion idea before she died.^^ 

^^Why, I thought they owned slaves up to the end, 
General. 

Slaves? What have slaves got to do with it? 
Ain^t the abolitionists and the woman suffragists 
and the rest of those damned fire-eating Yankees all 
the same? What they want to do is to overturn the 
Constitution, and it makes no difference to ’em whether 
they overturn it under one name or the other. I 
tell you, Ben, as sure’s my narne’s George Bolingbroke, 
Matoaca Bland couldn’t have told me to the day of her 
death whether she was an abolitionist or a woman’s 
suffragist. When a woman goes cracked like that, all 
she wants is to be a fire-eater, and I doubt if she ever 
knows what she is eating it about. Women ain’t like 
men, my boy, there isn’t an ounce of moderation to 
the whole sex, sir. Why, look at the way they’re 
always getting their hearts broken or their heads 
cracked. They can’t feel an emotion or think an idea 
that something inside of ’em doesn’t begin to split. 
Now, did you ever hear of a man getting his heart 
broken or his brain cracked?” 

The canker was still there, doing its bitter work. 
For forty years Miss Matoaca had had her revenge, 
and even in the grave her ghost would not lie quiet 
and let him rest. In his watery little eyes and his 
protruding, childish lip, I read the story of fruitless 
excesses and of vain retaliations. 


I AM THE WONDER OF THE HOUR 


25J 


When I reached home, I found Sally in her upstairs 
sitting-room with Jessy, who was trying on an elaborate 
ball gown of white lace. Since the two years of mourn- 
ing were over, the little sister had come to stay with us, 
and Sally was filled with generous plans for the girFs 
pleasure. Jessy, herself, received it all with her re- 
served, indifferent manner, turning her beautiful pro- 
file upon us with an expression of saintly serenity. 
It amused me sometimes to wonder what was behind 
the brilliant red and white of her complexion — what 
thoughts? what desires? what impulses? She went 
so placidly on her way, gaining what she wanted, exe- 
cuting what she planned, accepting what was offered 
to her, that there were moments when I felt tempted 
to arouse her by a burst of anger — to discover if a 
single natural instinct survived the shining polish of 
her exterior. Sally had worked a miracle in her man- 
ner, her speech, her dress; and yet in all that time I 
had never seen the ripple of an impulse cross the ex- 
quisite vacancy of her face. Did she feel? Did she 
think? Did she care? I demanded. Once or twice 
I had spoken of President, trying to excite a look of 
gratitude, if not of affection ; but even then no change 
had come in the mirror-like surface of her blue eyes. 
President, I was aware, had sacrificed himself to her 
while I was still a child, had slaved and toiled and 
denied himself that he might make her a lady. Yet 
when I asked her if she ever wrote to him, she smiled 
quietly and shook her head. 

^^Why don^t you write to him, Jessy? He was 
always fond of you.^^ 

^^He writes such dreadful letters — just like a work- 


252 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


ing-man’s — that I hate to get them/^ she answered, 
turning to catch the effect of her train in the long 
mirror. 

^^He is a working-man, Jessy, and so am I.’’ 

She accepted the statement without demur, as she 
accepted everything — neither denying nor disputing, 
but apparently indifferent to its truth or falseness. 
My eyes met Sally^s in the glass, and they held me in a 
long, compassionate gaze. 

‘^All men are working-men, Jessy, if they are worth 
anything,^’ she said, ^^and any work is good work if 
it is well done.’' 

^^He is a miner,” responded Jessy. 

^^If he is, it is because he prefers to do the work he 
knows to being idle,” I answered sharply. ^^What 
you must remember is that when he had little, and I 
had nothing, he gave you freely all that he had.” 

She did not answer, and for a moment I thought I 
had convinced her. 

^^Will you write to President to-night?” I asked. 

‘^But we are having a dinner party. How can 
I?” 

To-morrow, then?” 

am going to the theatre with Mrs. Blansford. 
Mr. Cottrel has taken a box for her. He is one of the 
richest men in the West, isn’t he?” 

There are a great many rich men in the West. How 
can it concern you?” 

^^Oh, it’s beautiful to be rich,” she returned, in the 
most enthusiastic phrase I had ever heard her utter; 
and gathering her white lace train over her arm she 
went into her bedroom to remove the dress. 


I AM THE WONDER OF THE HOUR 


253 


^^What is she made of, Sally I asked, in sheer 
desperation; flesh and blood, do you think 

don’t know, Ben, not your flesh and blood, cer- 
tainly.” 

^^But for President — why wasn’t my father hanged 
before he gave him such a name ! — she would have 
remained ignorant and common with all her beauty. 
He almost starved himself in order to send her to a good 
school and give her pretty clothes.” 

know, I know, it seems terribly ungrateful — but 
perhaps she’s excited over her first dinner.” 

That evening we were to give our flrst formal dinner, 
and when I came downstairs a little before eight o’clock, 
I found the rooms a bower of azaleas, over which the 
pink-shaded lamps shed a light that touched Jessy’s 
lace gown with pale rose. 

^Ht’s like fairyland, isn’t it?” she said, ^'and the 
table is so beautiful. Come and see the table.” 

She led me into the dining-room and we stood gazing 
down on the decorations, while we waited for Sally. 

“Who is coming, Jessy?” 

“Twelve in all. General Bolingbroke and Mr. 
Bolingbroke, Mrs. Fitzhugh, Governor Blenner, Miss 
Page,” she went on reading the cards, “Mr. Mason, 
Miss Watson, Colonel Henry, Mrs. Preston, Mrs. 
Tyler — ” 

“That will do. I’ll know them when I see them. 
Do you like it, Jessy?” 

“Yes, I like it. Isn’t my dress lovely?” 

“Very, but don’t get spoiled. You see Sally has 
had this all her life, and she isn’t spoiled.” 

“I don’t believe she could be,” she responded, for her 


254 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


admiration for Sally was the most human thing I had 
ever discovered about her, ^^and she^s so beautiful — 
more beautiful, I think, than Bonny Page, though of 
course nobody would agree with me.’’ 

^^Well, she’s perfect, and she always was and always 
will be,” I returned. 

You’re a great man, aren’t you?” she asked sud- 
denly, turning away from the table. 

^^Why, no. What in the world put that into your 
head?” 

Well, the General told Mr. Cottrel you were a genius, 
and Mr. Cottrel said you were the first genius he had 
ever heard of who measured six feet two in his stock- 
ings.” 

^^Of course I’m not a genius. They were joking.” 

You’re rich anyway, and that’s just as good.” 

I was about to make some sharp rejoinder, irritated 
by her insistence on the distinction of wealth, when the 
sound of Sally’s step fell on my ears, and a moment 
later she came down the brilliantly lighted staircase, 
her long black lace train rippling behind her. As she 
moved among the lamps and azaleas, I thought I 
had never seen her more radiant — not even on the 
night of her first party when she wore the white rose 
in her wreath of plaits. Her hair was arranged to-night 
in the same simple fashion, her mouth was as vivid, 
her grey eyes held the same mingling of light with dark- 
ness. But there was a deeper serenity in her face, 
brought there by the untroubled happiness of her 
marriage, and her figure had grown fuller and nobler, 
as if it had moulded itself to the larger and finer pur- 
poses of life. 


I AM THE WONDER OF THE HOUR 255 

^^The house is charming, Jessy is lovely, and you, 
Ben, are magnificent,^^ she said, her eyebrows arching 
merrily as she slipped her hand in my arm. ^^And it^s 
a good dinner, too,’’ she went on; ^Hhe terrapin is 
perfect. I sent into the country for the game, and the 
man from Washington came down with the decorations 
and the ices. Best of all, I made the salad myself, so 
be sure to eat it. We’ll begin to be gay now, shan’t we ? 
Are you sure we have money enough for a ball?” 

“We’ve money enough for anything that you want, 
Sally.” 

“Then I’ll spend it — but oh ! Ben, promise me you 
won’t mention stocks to-night until the women have 
left the table.” 

“I’ll promise you, and keep it, too. I don’t believe 
I ever introduced a subject in my life to any woman 
but you.” 

“I’m glad, at least, there’s one subject you didn’t 
introduce to any other.” 

Then the door-bell rang, and we hurried into the 
drawing-room in time to receive Governor Blenner and 
the General, who arrived together. 

“I almost got a fall on your pavement, Ben,” said 
the General, “it’s beginning to sleet. You’d better 
have some sawdust down.” 

It took me a few minutes to order the sawdust, 
and when I returned, the other guests were already 
in the room, and Sally was waiting to go in to dinner 
on the arm of Governor Blenner, a slim, nervous-look- 
ing man, with a long iron-grey mustache. I took in 
Mrs. Tyler, a handsome widow, with a young face and 
snow-white hair, and we were no sooner seated than 


256 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


she began to tell me a story she had heard about me 
that morning. 

^ Tarry James told me she gave her little boy a penny 
and asked him what he meant to do with it. ‘Ath 
Mithter Starr to thurn it into a quarther/ he replied.” 

^Th, he thinks that easy now, but he^ll find out 
differently some day,” I returned. 

She nodded brightly, with the interested, animated 
manner of a woman who realises that the burden of 
conversation lies, not on the man^s shoulders, but on 
hers. While she ate her soup I knew that her alert 
mind was working over the subject which she intended 
to introduce with the next course. From the other 
end of the table Sally's eyes were raised to mine over 
the basket of roses and lilies. Jessy was listening to 
George Bolingbroke, who was telling a story about the 
races, while his eyes rested on Sally, with a dumb, 
pained look that made me suddenly feel very sorry for 
him. I knew that he still loved her, but until I saw 
that look in his eyes I had never understood what the 
loss of her must have meant in his life. Suppose I had 
lost her, and he had won, and I had sat and stared at 
her across her own dinner table with my secret written 
in my eyes for her husband to read. A fierce sense of 
possession swept over me, and I felt angered because 
his longing gaze was on her flushed cheeks and bare 
shoulders. 

“No, no wine. I've drunk my last glass of wine 
unless I may hope for it in heaven,” I heard the General 
say; “a little Scotch whiskey now and then will see me 
safely to my grave.” 

“From champagne to Scotch whiskey was a flat fall, 


I AM THE WONDER OF THE HOUR 


257 


General/’ observed Mrs. Tyler, my sprightly neigh- 
bour. 

^^It’s not so flat as the fall to Lithia water, though,” 
retorted the General. 

I was about to join vacantly in the laugh, when 
a sound in the doorway caused me to lift my eyes from 
my plate, and the next instant I sat paralysed by the 
figure that towered there over the palms and azaleas. 

^^Why, Benjy boy !” cried a voice, in a tone of joyous 
surprise, and while every head turned instantly in the 
direction of the words, the candles and the roses swam 
in a blur of colour before my eyes. Standing on the 
threshold, between two flowering azaleas, with a palm 
branch waving above his head, was President, my 
brother, who was a miner. Twenty years ago I had last 
seen him, and though he was rougher and older and 
greyer now, he had the same honest blue eyes and the 
same kind, sheepish face. The clothes he wore were 
evidently those in which he dressed himself for church 
on Sunday, and they made him ten times more awk- 
ward, ten times more ill at ease, than he would have 
looked in his suit of jeans. 

^^Why, Benjy boy!” he burst out again; '^and little 
Jessy 1” 

I sprang to my feet, while a hot wave swept over me 
at the thought that for a single dreadful instant I had 
been ashamed of my brother. Already I had pushed 
back my chair, but before I could move from my 
place, Sally had walked the length of the table, and 
stood, tall and queenly, between the flowering aza- 
leas, with her hand outstretched. There was no 
shame in her face, no embarrassment, no hesitation. 


258 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Before I could speak she had turned and come back 
to us, with her arm through President’s, and never 
in my eyes had she appeared so noble, so high-bred, 
so thoroughly a Bland and a Fairfax as she did at that 
moment. 

“Governor, this is my brother, Mr. Starr,” she said 
in her low, clear voice. “Ben has not seen him for 
twenty years, so if you will pardon him, he will go up- 
stairs with him to his room.” 

As I went toward her my glance swept the table 
for Jessy, and I saw that she was sitting perfectly still 
and colourless, crumbling a small piece of bread, while 
her eyes clung to the basket of roses and lilies. 

“Well, Benjy boy!” exclaimed President, too full 
for speech, “and little Jessy!” 

In spite of his awkwardness and his Sunday clothes, 
he looked so happy, so up-lifted by the sincerity of his 
affection above any false feeling of shame, that the 
tears sprang to my eyes as I clasped his hand. 

The governor had risen to speak to him, the General 
had done likewise. By their side Sally stood with a 
smile on her face and her hand on the table. She was 
a Bland, after all, and the racial instinct within her 
had risen to meet the crisis. They recognised it, I 
saw, and they, whose blood was as blue as hers, re- 
sponded generously to the call. Not one had failed 
her! Then my eyes fell on Jessy, sitting cold and 
silent, while she crumbled her bit of bread. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 

OUGHTN^T to have done it, Benjy,^^ said President, 
following me with diffidence under the waving palm 
branches and up the staircase. 

Nonsense, President,^^ I answered; ^H’m awfully 
glad youVe come. Only if I’d known about it, I’d 
have met you at the station.” 

^^No, I oughtn’t to have done it, Benjy,” he re- 
peated humbly, standing in a dejected attitude in the 
centre of the guest room next to Jessy’s. He had 
entered nervously, as if he were stepping on glass, and 
when I motioned to a chair he shook his head and 
glanced uneasily at the delicate chintz covering. 

'H’d better not sit down. I’m feared I’ll hurt it.” 

^Ht’s made to be sat in. You aren’t going to stand 
up in the middle of the room all night, old fellow, are 
you?” 

At this he appeared to hesitate, and a pathetic 
groping showed itself in his large, good-humoured 
face. 

^^You see, I’ve been down in the mines,” he said, 
^^an’ anything so fancy makes my flesh crawl.” 

^‘1 wish you’d give up that work. It’s a shame to 
have you do it when I’ve got more money than I can 
find investments for.” 


259 


260 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


a worker, Benjy, and 1^11 die a worker. Pa 
wa’nt a worker, and that^s why he took to drink.’' 

^^Well, sit down now, and make yourself at home. 
I’ve got to go back downstairs, but I’ll come up again 
the very minute that it’s over.” 

Pushing him, in spite of his stubborn, though humble, 
resistance, into the depths of the chintz-covered chair, 
I went hurriedly back to the dinner-table, and took my 
seat beside Mrs. Tyler, who remarked with a tact which 
won me completely : — 

^^Mrs. Starr has been telling us such interesting 
things about your brother. He has a very fine head.” 

^^By George, I’m glad I shook his hand,” said the 
General, in his loud, kindly way. Bring him to see 
me, Ben, I like a worker.” 

The terrible minute in which I had sat there, paralysed 
by the shame of acknowledging him, was still searing 
my mind. As I met Sally’s eyes over the roses and 
lilies, I wondered if she had seen my cowardliness as 
I had seen Jessy’s, and been repelled by it? When 
the dinner was over, and the last guest had gone, I 
asked myself the question again while I went upstairs 
to bring my brother from his retirement. As I opened 
the door, he started up from the chair in which I had 
placed him, and began rubbing his eyes as he followed 
me timidly out of the room. At the table Sally seated 
herself opposite to him, and talked in her simple, 
kindly manner while he ate his dinner. 

^^Pour his wine, Ben,” she said, dismissing the butler, 
^Hhere are too many frivolities, aren’t there? I like 
a clear space, too.” 

Turning toward him she pushed gently away the 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 


261 


confusing decorations, and removed the useless num- 
ber of forks from beside his plate. If the way he ate 
his soup and drank his wine annoyed her, there was 
no hint of it in her kind eyes and her untroubled 
smile. She, who was sensitive to the point of deli- 
cacy, I knew, watched him crumble his bread into 
his green turtle, and gulp down his sherry, with a 
glance which apparently was oblivious of the thing at 
which it looked. Jessy shrank gradually away, con- 
fessing presently that she had a headache and would 
like to go upstairs to bed ; and when she kissed Presi- 
dent’s cheek, I saw aversion written in every line of 
her shrinking figure. Yet opposite to him sat Sally, 
who was a. Bland and a Fairfax, and not a tremor, 
not the fiicker of an eyelash, disturbed her friendly 
and charming expression. What was the secret of 
that exquisite patience, that perfect courtesy, which 
was confirmed by the heart, not by the lips? Did 
the hidden cause of it lie in the fact that it was not a 
manner, after all, but the very essence of a character, 
whose ruling spirit was exhaustless sympathy? 

^'I’ve told Benjy, ma’am,” said President, selecting 
the largest fork by some instinct for appropriateness, 
^Hhat I know I oughtn’t to have done it.” 

^^To have done what?” repeated Sally kindly. 

'^That I oughtn’t to have come in on a party like 
that dressed as I am, and I so plain and uneddi- 
cated.” 

“You mustn’t worry,” she answered, bending for- 
ward in all the queenliness of her braided wreath and 
her bare shoulders, “you mustn’t worry — not for a 
minute. It was natural that you should come to 


262 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


your brother at once, and, of course, we want you to 
stay with us/^ 

I had never seen her fail when social intuition 
guided her, and she did not fail now. He glanced 
down at his clothes in a pleased, yet hesitating, manner. 

^^These did very well on Sunday in Pocahontas,^^ 
he said, ^^but somehow they don^t seem to suit here; 
I reckon so many flowers and lights kind of dazzle my 
eyes.^’ 

^^They do perfectly well,’^ answered Sally, speaking 
in a firm, direct way as if she were talking to a child ; 
“but if you would feel more comfortable in some of 
Ben^s clothes, he has any number of them at your 
service. He is about your height, is he not?’' 

“To think of little Benjy gr owin’ so tall,” he re- 
marked with a kind of ecstasy, and when we went 
into the library for a smoke, he insisted upon meas- 
uring heights with me against the ledge of the door. 
Then, alone with me and the cheerful crackling of the 
log fire, his embarrassment disappeared, and he began 
to ask a multitude of eager questions about myself 
and Jessy and my marriage. 

“And so pa died,” he remarked sadly, between the 
long whiffs of his pipe. 

“I’m not sure it wasn’t the best thing he ever did,” 
I responded. 

“Well, you see, Benjy, he wa’nt a worker, and 
when a man ain’t a worker there’s mighty little to 
stand between him and drink. Now, ma, she was a 
worker.” 

“And we got it from her. That’s why we hate to 
be idle, I suppose.” 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 


263 


Did it ever strike you, Benjy/^ he enquired solemnly, 
after a minute, ^Hhat in the marriage of ma and pa 
the breeches were on the wrong one of ^em? Pa 
wa^nt much of a man, but he would have made a 
female that we could have been proud of. With all 
the good working qualities, we never could be proud 
of ma when we considered her as a female. 

'^Well, I don^t know, but I think she was the best 
we ever had.^' 

^^We are proud of Jessy,^^ he pursued reflectively. 

'^Yes, we are proud of Jessy,^^ I repeated, and as I 
uttered the words, I remembered her beautiful blighted 
look, while she sat cold and silent, crumbling her bit 
of bread. 

^'And we are proud of you, Benjy,^^ he added, '^but 
you ain^t any particular reason to be proud of me. You 
can^t be proud of a man that ain^t had an eddication.^^ 

^^Well, the education doesn^t make the man, you 
know.^^ 

^^It does a good deal towards it. The stuffing goes 
a long way with the goose, as poor ma used to say. 
Do you ever think what ma would have been if sheM 
had an eddication ? An eddication and breeches 
would have made a general of her. It must take a 
powerful lot of patience to stand being born a female. 

He took a wad of tobacco from his pocket, eyed it 
timidly, and after glancing at the tiled hearth, put it 
back again. 

You know what I would do if I were a rich man, 
Benjy?'^ he said; '‘Vd buy a railroad. 

You’d have to be a very rich man, indeed, to do 
that.” 


264 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


a little dead-beat road, the West Virginia and 
Wyanoke. I overheard two gentlemen talking about 
it yesterday in Pocahontas, and one of ’em had been 
down to look at those worked-out coal fields at Wya- 
noke. ^If I wa’nt in as many schemes as I could 
float, I’d buy up a control of that road,’ said the one 
who had been there, ^you mark my words, there’s 
better coal in those fields than has ever come out of 
’em.’ They called him Huntley, and he said he’d 
been down with an expert.” 

^ ^ Huntley ?” I caught at the name, for he was one of 
the shrewdest promoters in the South. ^Hf he thinks 
that, why didn’t he get control of the road himself?” 

'^The other wanted him to. He said the time 
would come when they tapped the coal fields that 
the Great South Midland and Atlantic would want the 
little road as a feeder.” 

^^So he believed the Wyanoke coal fields weren’t 
worked out, eh?” 

^'He said they wa’nt even developed. You see it 
was all a secret, and they didn’t pay any attention to 
me, because I was just a common miner.” 

''And couldn’t buy a railroad. Well, President, if it 
comes to anything, you shall have your share. Mean- 
while, I’ll run out to Wyanoke and look around.” 

With the idea still in my mind, I went into the 
General’s office next day, and told him that I had 
decided to accept the presidency of the Union Bank. 

"Well, I’m sorry to lose you, Ben. Perhaps you’ll 
come back to the road in another capacity when I 
am dead. It will be a bigger road then. We’re buy- 
ing up the Tennessee and Carolina, you know ” 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 


265 


a great road youVe made, General, and I 
like to serve it. By the way, Tm going to West 
Virginia in a day or two to have a look at the West 
Virginia and Wyanoke. What do you know of the 
coal fields at Wyanoke 

^^No ^count ones. I wouldn’t meddle with that 
little road if I were you. It will go bankrupt presently, 
and then we’ll buy it, I suppose, at our own price. 
It runs through scrub land populated by old field 
pines. How is that miner brother of yours, Ben? 
I saw Sally at the theatre with him. You’ve got a 
jewel, my boy, there’s no doubt of that. When I 
looked at her sailing down the room on his arm last 
night, by George, I wished I was forty years younger 
and married to her myself.” 

Some hours later I repeated his remark to Sally, 
when I went home at dusk and found her sitting before 
a wood fire in her bedroom, with her hat and coat on, 
just as she had dropped there after a drive with 
President. 

^^Well, I wouldn’t have the General at any age. 
You needn’t be jealous, Ben,” she responded. ^H’m 
too much like Aunt Matoaca.” 

^^He always said you were,” I retorted, ^^but, oh, 
Sally, you are an angel ! When I saw you rise at 
dinner last night, I wanted to squeeze you in my 
arms and kiss you before them all.” 

The little scar by her mouth dimpled with the old 
childish expression of archness. 

^^Suppose you do it now, sir,” she rejoined, with 
the primness of Miss Mitty, and a little later, ^^What 
else was there to do but rise, you absurd boy ? Poor 


266 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


mamma used to tell me that grandpapa always said 
to her, ^When in doubt choose the kindest way/'^ 

^^And yet he disinherited his favourite daughter/^ 
Which only proves, my dear, how much easier it is 
to make a proverb than to practise it/^ 

^^Do you know, Sally, I began falteringly, after a 
minute, ^Hhere is something I ought to tell you, and 
that is, that when I looked up at the table last night 
and saw President in the doorway, my first feeling 
was one of shame/' 

She rubbed her cheek softly against my sleeve. 

^^Shall I confess something just as dreadful?" she 
asked. ^^When I looked up and saw him standing 
there my first feeling was exactly the same." 

Sally, I am so thankful." 

'^You wicked creature, to want me to be as bad as 
yourself." 

^^It couldn't have lasted with you but a second." 

^^It didn't, but a second is an hour in the mind of a 
snob." 

^^Well, we were both snobs together, and that's 
some comfort, anyway." 

For the three days that President remained with 
us he wore my clothes, in which he looked more than 
ever like a miner attired for church, and carried him- 
self with a resigned and humble manner. 

Sally took him to the theatre and to drive with her 
in the afternoon, and I carried him to the General's 
office and over the Capitol, which he surveyed with 
awed and admiring eyes. Only Jessy still shrank 
from him, and not once during his visit were we able 
to prevail upon her to appear with him in the presence 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 


267 


of strangers. There was always an excuse ready to 
trip off her tongue — she had a headache, she was 
going to the dressmaker^s, the milliner’s, the dentist’s 
even; and I honestly believe that she sought cheer- 
fully this last place of torture as an escape. To the 
end, however, he regarded her with an affection that 
fell little short of adoration. 

^^Who’d have thought that little Jessy would have 
shot up into a regular beauty!” he exclaimed for the 
twentieth time as he stood ready to depart. ^'She 
takes arter pa, and I always said the only thing 
against pa was that he wa’nt born a female.” 

He kissed her good-by in a reverential fashion, and 
after a cordial, though exhausted, leave-taking from 
Sally, we went together to West Virginia. In spite 
of the General’s advice, I had decided to take a look 
at the coal fields of Wyanoke, and a week later, when 
I returned to Richmond, I was the owner of a control 
of the little West Virginia and Wyanoke Railroad. It 
was a long distance from the presidency of the Great 
South Midland and Atlantic, but I watched stiU from 
some vantage ground in my imagination, the gleam- 
ing tracks of the big road sweeping straight on to the 
southern horizon. 

For the next few years there was hardly a shadow 
on the smiling surface of our prosperity. Society had 
received us in spite of my father, in spite even of my 
brother; and the day that had made me Sally’s hus- 
band had given me a place, if an alien one, in the 
circle in which she moved. I was there at last, and it 
was neither her fault nor mine if I carried with me 
into that stained-glass atmosphere something of the 


268 THE ROMANCE OP A PLAIN MAN 

consciousness of the market boy, who seemed to stand 
always at the kitchen door. Curiously enough there 
were instants even now when I felt vaguely aware 
that, however large I might appear to loom in my 
physical presence, a part of me was, in reality, still 
on the outside, hovering uncertainly beyond the 
threshold. There were things I had never learned — 
would never learn; things that belonged so naturally 
to the people with whom I lived that they seemed 
only aware of them when brought face to face 
with the fact of their absence. The lightness of life 
taught me nothing except that I was built in 
mind and in body upon a heavier plan. At the 
dinner-table, when the airy talk floated about me, I 
felt again and again that the sparkling trivialities 
settled like thistledown upon the solid mass I pre- 
sented, and remained there because of my native 
inability to waft them back. It was still as impossi- 
ble for me to entertain pretty girls in pink tarlatan as 
it had been on the night of my first party; and the 
memory of that disastrous social episode stung me at 
times when I stood large and awkward before a gay 
and animated maiden, or sat wedged in, like a massive 
block, between two patient and sleepy mothers. These 
people were all Sally’s friends, not mine, and it was 
for her sake, I never forgot for a minute, that they 
had accepted me. With just such pleasant conde- 
scension they would still have accepted me, I knew, 
if I had, in truth, entered their company with my 
basket of potatoes or carrots on my arm. One 
alone held out unwaveringly through the years; for 
Miss Mitty, shut with her pride and her portraits in 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 


269 


the old grey house, obstinately closed her big ma- 
hogany doors against our repeated friendly advances. 
Sometimes at dusk, as I passed on the crooked pave- 
ment under the two great sycamores, I would glance 
up at the windows, where the red firelight glimmered 
on the small square panes, and fancy that I saw her 
long, oval face gazing down on me from between the 
parted lace curtains. But she made no sign of for- 
giveness, and when Sally went to see her, as she did 
sometimes, the old lady received her formally in the 
drawing-room, with a distant and stately manner. 
She, who was the mixture of a Bland and a Fairfax, 
sat enthroned upon her traditions, while we of the 
common, outside world walked by under the silvery 
boughs of her sycamores. 

“Aunt Mitty has told Selim not to admit me,’^ said 
Sally one day at luncheon. “I know she wasn^t out 
in this dreadful March wind — she never leaves the 
house except in summer — and yet when I went 
there, he told me positively she was not at home. 
When I think of her all alone hour after hour with 
Aunt Matoaca^s things around her, I feel as if it would 
break my heart. George says she is looking very 
badly.^’ 

“Does George see her?’^ I asked, glancing up from 
my cup of coffee, while I waited for the light to a 
cigar. “I didn^t imagine he had enough attentions 
left over from his hunters to bestow upon maiden 
ladies.^' 

The sugar tongs were in her hand, and she looked 
not at me, but at the lump of sugar poised above her 
cup, as she answered. 


270 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


is so good/’ 

^^Good?” I echoed lightly; 'Mo you call George 
good? The General thinks he’s a sad scamp.” 

The lump of sugar dropped with a splash into her 
cup, and her eyes were dark as she raised them quickly 
to my face. Instinctively I felt, with a blind groping 
of perception, that I had wounded her pride, or her 
loyalty, or some other hereditary attribute of the 
Blands and the Fairfaxes that I could not comprehend. 

^'If I wanted an estimate of goodness, I don’t think 
I’d go to the General as an authority,” she retorted. 

"I’m sorry you never liked him, Sally. He’s a 
great man.” 

"Well, he isn’t my great man anyway,” she re- 
torted. "I prefer Dr. Theophilus or George.” 

I laughed gayly. "The doctor is a mollycoddle and 
George is a fop.” My tone was jaunty, yet her words 
were like the prick of a needle in a sensitive place. 
What was her praise of George except the confession 
of an appreciation of the very things that I could 
never possess? I knew she loved me and not George 
— was not her marriage a proof of this sufficient to 
cover a lifetime ? — yet I knew also that the external 
graces which I treated with scorn because I lacked 
them, held for her the charm of habit, of association, 
of racial memory. Would the power in me that had 
captured her serve as well through a future of familiar 
possession as it had served in the supreme moment of 
conquest? I could not go through life, as I had 
once said, forever pushing a wheel up a hill, and the 
strength of a shoulder might prove, after all, less 
effective in the freedom of daily intercourse than the 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 


271 


quickness or delicacy of a manner. Would she begin 
to regret presently, I wondered, the lack in the man 
she loved of those smaller virtues which in the first 
rosy glow of romance had seemed to her insignificant 
and of little worth? 

There are worse things than a mollycoddle or a 
fop,^^ she rejoined after a pause, and added quickly, 
while old Esdras left the dining-room to answer a ring 
at the bell, ^^That^s either Bonny Page or George 
now. One of them is coming to take me out.^^ 

For a moment I hoped foolishly that the visitor 
might be Bonny Page, but the sound of George^s 
pleasant drawling voice was heard speaking to old 
Esdras, and as the curtains swung back, he crossed 
the threshold and came over to take Sally^s out- 
stretched hand. 

^^You^re lunching late to-day,’^ he said. donT 
often find you here at this hour, Ben.^^ 

^‘No, I^m not a man-about-town like you,^' I re- 
plied, pushing the cigars and the lamp toward him; 
^Hhe business of living takes up too much of my 
time.^^ 

He leaned over, without replying to me, his hand 
on the back of Sally^s chair, his eyes on her face. 

^Ht^s all right, Sally,^’ he said in a low voice, and 
when he drew back, I saw that he had laid a spray of 
sweet alyssum on the table beside her plate. 

Her eyes shone suddenly as if she were looking at 
sunlight, and when she smiled up at him, there was 
an expression in her face, half gratitude, half admira- 
tion, that made it very beautiful. While I watched 
her, I tried to overcome an ugly irrational resentment 


272 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


because George had been the one to call that tremu- 
lous new beauty into existence. 

^'How like you it was/' she returned, almost in a 
whisper, with the spray of sweet alyssum held to her 
lips, ^^and how can I thank you?" 

His slightly wooden features, flushed now with a 
flne colour, as if he had been riding in the March wind, 
softened until I hardly knew them. Standing there in 
his immaculate clothes, with his carefully groomed 
mustache hiding a trembling mouth, he had become, 
I realised vaguely, a George with whom the General 
and I possessed hardly so much as an acquaintance. 
The man before me was a man whom Sally had in- 
voked into being, and it seemed to me, as I watched 
them, that she had awakened in George, who had lost 
her, some quality — inscrutable and elusive — that 
she had never aroused in the man to whom she be- 
longed. What this quality was, or wherein it lay, I 
could not then define. Understanding, sympathy, 
perception, none of these words covered it, yet it ap- 
peared to contain and possess them all. The mere 
fact of its existence, and that I recognised without 
explaining it, had the effect of a barrier which sepa- 
rated me for the moment from my wife and the man 
to whom she was related by the ties of race and of 
class. Again I was aware of that sense of strangeness, 
of remoteness, which I had felt on the night of our 
home-coming when I had stood, spellbound, before 
Bonny Page's exquisite grooming and the shining 
gloss on her hair and boots. Something — a trifle, 
perhaps, had passed between Sally and George — • 
and the reason I did not understand it was because 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 


273 


I belonged to another order and had inherited differ- 
ent perceptions from theirs. The trifle — whatever 
it was — appeared visibly, I knew, before us ; it was 
evident and on the surface, and if I failed to discern 
it what did that prove except the shortness of the 
vision through which I looked ? A physical soreness, 
like that of a new bruise, attacked my heart, and 
rising hastily from the table, I made some hurried 
apology and went out, leaving them alone together. 
Glancing back as I got into my overcoat in the 
hall, I saw that Sally still held the spray of sweet 
alyssum to her lips, and that the look George bent 
on her was transfigured by the tenderness that 
flooded his face with colour. She loved me, she was 
mine, and yet at this instant she had turned to an- 
other man for a keener comprehension, a subtler sym- 
pathy, than I could give. A passion, not of jealousy, 
but of hurt pride, throbbed in my heart, and by some 
curious eccentricity of emotion, this pride was asso- 
ciated with a rush of ambition, with the impelling 
desire to succeed to the fullest in the things in which 
success was possible. If I could not give what George 
gave, I would give, I told myself passionately, some- 
thing far better. When the struggle came closer be- 
tween the class and the individual, I had little doubt 
that the claims of tradition would yield as they had 
always done to the possession of power. Only let 
that power find its fullest expression, and I should 
stand to George Bolingbroke as the living present of 
action stands to the dead past of history. After all, 
what I had to give was my own, hewn by my own 
strength out of life, while the thing in which he ex- 


274 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


celled was merely a web of delicate fibre woven by 
generations of hands that had long since crumbled to 
dust. Triumph over him, I resolved that I would in 
the end, and the way to triumph led, I knew, through 
a future of outward achievement to the dazzling presi- 
dency of the South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. 

As time went on this passionate ambition, which 
was so closely bound up with my love for Sally, 
absorbed me even to the exclusion of the feeling from 
which it had drawn its greatest strength. The re- 
sponsibilities of my position, the partial control of 
the large sums of money that passed through my 
hands, crowded my days with schemes and anxieties, 
and kept me tossing, sleepless yet with wearied brain, 
through many a night. For pleasure I had no time; 
Sally I saw only for a hurried or an absent-minded 
hour or two at meals, or when I came up too tired 
to think or to talk in the evenings. Often I fell 
asleep over my cigar after dinner, while she dressed 
and hastened, with her wreathed head and bare 
shoulders, to a reception or a ball. A third of my 
time was spent in New York, and during my absence, 
it never occurred to me to enquire how she filled her 
long, empty days. She was sure of me, she trusted 
me, I knew; and in the future, I told myself when I 
had leisure to think of it — next year, perhaps — I 
should begin again to play the part of an ardent 
lover. She was as desirable — she was far dearer to 
me than she had ever been in her life, but while I 
held her safe and close in my clasp, my mind reached 
out with its indomitable energy after the uncertain, 
the unattained. I had my wife — what I wanted now 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 


27o 


was a fortune and a great name to lay at her 
feet. 

And all these months did she ever question, ever 
ask herself, while she watched me struggling day after 
day with the lust for power, if the thing that I sought 
to give her would in the end turn to Dead Sea fruit 
at her lips? Question she may have done in her 
heart, but no hint of it ever reached me — no com- 
plaint of her marriage ever disturbed the outward 
serenity in which we lived. Yet, deep in myself, I 
heard always a still small voice, which told me that 
she demanded something far subtler and finer than I 
had given — something that belonged inherently to the 
nature of George Bolingbroke rather than to mine. 
Even now, though she loved me and not George, it 
was George who was always free, who was always 
amiable, who was always just ready and just waiting 
to be called. On another day, a month or two later, 
he came in again with his blossom of sweet alyssum, 
and again her eyes grew shining and grateful, while 
the old bruise throbbed quickly to life in my heart. 

^^Is it all right still she asked, and he answered, 
^^All right, with his rare smile, which lent a singular 
charm to his softened features. 

Then he glanced across at me and made, I realised, 
an effort to be friendly. 

^^You ought to get a horse, Ben,^^ he remarked, '^it 
would keep you from getting glum. If you^d hunted 
with us yesterday, you would have seen Bonny Page 
take a gate like a bird.^^ 

-tried to follow, said Sally, ^^but Prince Charlie 
refused.’^ 


276 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^You mean I wouldn’t let go your bridle,” re- 
turned George, in a half-playful, half-serious tone. 

The bruise throbbed again. Here, also, I was shut 
out — I who had carried potatoes to George’s door 
while he was off learning to follow the hounds. Hi3 
immaculate, yet careless, dress; the perfection of hif* 
manner, which seemed to make him a part of the 
surroundings in which he stood ; the very smoothness 
and slenderness of the hand that rested on Sally’s chair 
— all these produced in me a curious and unreasonable 
sensation of anger. 

‘‘1 forbid you to jump, Sally,” I said, almost sharply ; 
^^you know I hate it.” 

She leaned forward, glancing first at me and then 
at George, with an expression of surprise. 

^^Why, what’s the matter, Ben?” she asked. ^^He’s 
a perfect bear, isn’t he, George?” 

^^The best way to keep her from jumping,” observed 
George, pleasantly enough, though his face flushed, ^4s 
to be on the spot to catch her bridle or her horse’s 
mane or anything else that’s handy. It’s the only 
means I’ve found successful, for there was never a 
Bland yet who didn’t go straight ahead and do the 
thing he was forbidden to. Miss Mitty told me with 
pride that she had been eating lobster, which she 
always hated, and I discovered her only reason waf 
that the doctor had ordered her not to touch it.” 

^^Then I shan’t forbid. I’ll entreat,” I replied, re 
covering myself with an effort. Please don’t jump, 
Sally, I implore it.” 

won’t jump if you’ll come with me, Ben,” she 
answered. 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 


277 


I laughed shortly, for how was it possible to ex- 
plain to two Virginians of their blood and habits 
that a man of six feet two inches could not sit a horse 
for the first time without appearing ridiculous in the 
eyes even of the woman who loved him? They had 
grown up together in the fields or at the stables, and 
a knowledge of horse-flesh was as much a part of their 
birthright as the observance of manners. The one I 
could never acquire; the other I had attained un- 
aided and in the face of the tremendous barriers that 
shut me out. The repeated insistence upon the fact 
that Sally was a Bland aroused in me, whenever I 
met it, an irritation which I tried in vain to dispel. 
To be a Bland meant, after all, simply to be removed 
as far as possible from any temperamental relation 
to the race of Starrs. 

^‘1 wish I could, dear,’^ I answered, as I rose to go 
out, ^'but remember, IVe never been on a horse in my 
life and it^s too late to begin. 

^'Oh, I forgot. Of course you canT,’’ she rejoined. 
‘^So if George isnT strong enough to hold me back, 
1^11 have to go straight after Bonny. 

promise you I’ll swing on with all my might, 
Ben,” said George, with a laugh in which I felt there 
was an amiable condescension, as from the best horse- 
man in his state to a man who had never ridden to 
hounds. 

A little later, as I walked down the street, past the 
old grey house, under the young budding leaves of the 
sycamores, the recollection of this amiable condescen- 
sion returned to me like the stab of a knife. The 
image of Sally, mounted on Prince Charlie, at George’s 


278 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


side, troubled my thoughts, and I wondered, with a 
pang, if the people who saw them together would ask 
themselves curiously why she had chosen me. To 
one and all of them, — to Miss Mitty, to Bonny Page, 
to Dr. Theophilus, — the mystery, I felt, was as ob- 
scure to-day as it had been in the beginning of our 
love. Why was it? I questioned angrily, and wherein 
lay the subtle distinction which divided my nature 
from George Bolingbroke^s and even from Sally^s ? The 
forces of democracy had made way for me, and yet 
was there something stronger than democracy — 
and this something, fine and invincible as a blade, I 
had felt long ago in the presence of Miss Mitty and 
Miss Matoaca. Over my head, under the spreading 
boughs of the sycamore, a window was lifted, and 
between the parted lace curtains, the song of Miss 
Mitty^s canary floated out into the street. As the 
music entered my thoughts, I remembered suddenly 
the box of sweet alyssum blooming on the window- 
sill under the swinging cage, and there flashed into 
my consciousness the meaning of the flowers George 
had laid beside Sally^s plate. For her sake he had 
gone to Miss Mitty in the sad old house, and that little 
blossom was the mute expression of a service he had 
rendered joyfully in the name of love. The gratitude 
in Sally's eyes was made clear to me, and a helpless 
rage at my own blindness, my own denseness, flooded 
my heart. George, because of some inborn fineness 
of perception, had discerned the existence of a sorrow 
in my wife to which I, the man whom she loved and 
who loved her, had been insensible. He had under- 
stood and had comforted — while Ij engrossed in 


THE MAN AND THE CLASS 


279 


larger matters, had gone on my way unheeding and 
indifferent. Then the anger against myself turned 
blindly upon George, and I demanded passionately if 
he would stand forever in my life as the embodiment 
of instincts and perceptions that the generations had 
bred? Would I fail forever in little things because I 
had been cursed at birth by an inability to see any 
except big ones? And where I failed would George 
be always ready to fill the unspoken need and to 
bestow the unasked-for sympathy? 


CHAPTER XXIII 


IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE 

On a November evening, when we had been married 
several years, I came home after seven o^ clock, and 
found Sally standing before the bureau while she 
fastened a bunch of violets to the bosom of her gown. 

^H^m sorry I couldnT get up earlier, but there^s a 
good deal of excitement over a failure in Wall Street,’ ' 
I said. Are you going out ? ” 

Her hands fell from her bosom, and as she turned 
toward me, I saw that she was dressed as though for a 
ball. 

'^Not to-night, Ben. I had an engagement, but I 
broke it because I wanted to spend the evening with 
you. I thought we might have a nice cosy time all 
by ourselves.” 

^^What a shame, darling. I’ve promised Bradley 
I’d do a little work with him in my study. He’s com- 
ing at half-past eight and will probably keep me till 
midnight. I’ll have to hurry. Did you put on that 
gorgeous gown just for me?” 

“Just for you.” There was an expression on her 
face, half humorous, half resentful, that I had never 
seen there before. “What day is this, Ben?” she 
asked, as I was about to enter my dressing-room. 

“The nineteenth of November,” I replied carelessly, 
looking back at her with my hand on the door. 

280 


IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE 


281 


^^The nineteenth of November,” she echoed slowly, 
as if saying the words to herself. 

I was already on the threshold when light broke on 
me in a flash, and I turned, blind with remorse, and 
seized her in my arms. 

Sally, Sally, I am a brute!” 

She laughed a little, drawing away, not coming closer. 

^'Ben, are you happy?” 

^^As happy as a king. Ifll telephone Bradley not to 
come.” 

“Is it important?” 

“Yes, very important. That failure I told you of is 
a pretty serious matter.” 

“Then let him come. All days are the same, after 
all, when one comes to think of it.” 

Her hand went to the violets at her breast, and as my 
eyes followed it, a sudden intuitive dread entered my 
mind like an impulse of rage. 

“I intended to send you flowers, Sally, but in the 
rush, I forgot. Whose are those you are wearing?” 

She moved slightly, and the perfume of the violets 
floated from the cloud of lace on her bosom. 

“George sent them,” she answered quietly. 

Before she spoke I had known it — the curse of my 
life was to be that George would always remember — 
and the intuitive dread I had felt changed, while I stood 
there, to the dull ache of remorse. 

“Take them off, and Vl\ get you others if there^s a 
shop open in the city,” I said. Then, as she hesitated, 
wavering between doubt and surprise, I left the room, 
descended the steps with a rush, and picking up my 
hat, hurried in search of a belated florist who had not 


282 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

closed. At the corner a man, going out to dine, paused 
to fasten his overcoat under the electric light, which 
blazed fitfully in the wind ; and as I approached and he 
looked up, I saw that it was George Bolingbroke. 

^‘It’s time all sober married men were at home dress- 
ing for dinner, he observed in a whimsical tone. 

The wind had brought a glow of colour into his face, 
and he looked very handsome as he stood there, in his 
fur-lined coat, under the blaze of light. 

was kept late down town,^’ I replied. '^The 
General and I get all the hard knocks while you take 
it easy.^^ 

'^Well, I like an easy world, and I believe your world 
is pretty much about what you make it. Where 
are you rushing? Do you go my way?^^ ^ 

^^No, I^m turning off here. There^s something I 
forgot this morning and I came out to attend to it.^' 

^^DonT fall into the habit of forgetting. It^s a bad 
one and it’s sure to grow on you — and whatever you 
forget,” he added with a laugh as we parted, don’t for- 
get for a minute of your life that you’ve married Sally.” 

He passed on, still laughing pleasantly, and quicken- 
ing my steps, I went to the corner of Broad Street, 
where I found a florist’s shop still lighted and filled 
with customers. There were no violets left, and while 
I waited for a sheaf of pink roses, with my eyes on the 
elaborate funeral designs covering the counter, I 
heard a voice speaking in a low tone beyond a mass of 
flowering azalea beside which I stood. 

‘^Yes, her mother married beneath her, also,” it 
said; ‘Hhat seems to be the unfortunate habit of the 
Blands.” 


IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE 


283 


I turned quickly, my face hot with anger, and as I 
did so my eyes met those of a dark, pale lady, through 
the thick rosy clusters of the azalea. When she 
recognised me, she flushed slightly, and then moving 
slowly around the big green tub that divided us, she 
held out her hand with a startled and birdlike flutter 
of manner. 

“I missed you at the reception last night, Mr. Starr, 
she said; Sally was there, and I had never seen her 
looking so handsome. 

Then as the sheaf of roses was handed to me, she 
vanished behind the azaleas again, while I turned 
quickly away and carried my fragrant armful out into 
the night. 

Wh^n I reached home, I was met on the staircase by 
Jessy, who ran, laughing, before me to Sally, with the 
remark that I had come back bringing an entire rose 
garden in my hands. 

There werenT any violets left, darling,’’ I said, as I 
entered and tossed the flowers on the couch, ^^and even 
these roses aren’t fresh.” 

“Well, they’re sweet anyway, poor things,” she 
returned, gathering them into her lap, while her hands 
caressed the half-opened petals. “It was like you, 
Ben, when you did remember, to bring me the whole 
shopful.” 

Breaking one from the long stem, she fastened it in 
place of the violets in the cloud of lace on her bosom. 

“Pink suits me better, after all,” she remarked 
gayly ; “and now you must let Bradley come, and Jessy 
and I will go to the theatre.” 

“I suppose he’ll have to come,” I said moodily, 


284 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


'^but I’ll be up earlier to-morrow, Sally, if I wreck the 
bank in order to do it.” 

All the next day I kept the importance of fulfilling 
this promise in my mind, and at five o’clock, I abruptly 
broke off a business appointment to rush breathlessly 
home in the hope of finding Sally ready to walk or to 
drive. As I turned the corner, however, I saw, to my 
disappointment, that several riding horses were wait- 
ing under the young maples beside the pavement, and 
when I entered the house, I heard the merry fiutelike 
tones of Bonny Page from the long drawing-room, 
where Sally was serving tea. 

For a minute the unconquerable shyness I always 
felt in the presence of women held me, rooted in silence, 
on the threshold. Then, ^^Is that you, Ben?” floated 
to me in Sally’s voice, and pushing the curtains aside, 
I entered the room and crossed to the little group 
gathered before the fire. In the midst of it, I saw the 
tall, almost boyish figure of Bonny Page, and the sight 
of her gallant air and her brilliant, vivacious smile 
aroused in me instantly the oppressive self-conscious- 
ness of our first meeting. I remembered suddenly that 
I had dressed carelessly in the morning, that I had tied 
my cravat in a hurry, that my coat fitted me badly and 
I had neglected to send it back. All the innumerable 
details of life — the little things I despised or over- 
looked — swarmed, like stinging gnats, into my 
thoughts while I stood there. 

^'You’re just in time for tea, Ben,” said Sally; '^it’s 
a pity you don’t drink it.” 

''And you’re just in time for a scolding,’' remarked 
Bonny. "Do you know, if I had a husband who 


IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE 


285 


wouldn^t ride with me, I^d gallop off the first time I 
went hunting with another man/’ 

You’d better start, Ben. It wouldn’t take you 
three days to follow Bonny over a gate,” said Ned 
Marshall, one of her many lovers, eager, I detected at 
once, to appear intimate and friendly. He was a fine, 
strong, athletic young fellow, with a handsome, smooth- 
shaven face, a slightly vacant laugh, and a figure that 
showed superbly in his loose-fitting riding clothes. 

'^When I get the time, I’ll buy a horse and begin,” 
I replied ; ^^but all hours are working hours to me now, 
Sally will tell you.” 

^Ht’s exactly as if I’d married a railroad engine,” 
remarked Sally, laughing, and I realised by the strained 
look in their faces, that this absorption in larger 
matters — this unchangeable habit of thought that 
I could not shake off even in a drawing-room — 
puzzled them, because of their inherent incapacity to 
understand how it could be. My mind, which re- 
sponded so promptly to the need for greater exertions, 
was reduced to mere leaden weight by this restless 
movement of little things. And this leaden weight, 
this strained effort to become something other than I 
was by nature, was reflected in the smiling faces around 
me as in a mirror. The embarrassment in my thoughts 
extended suddenly to my body, and I asked myself 
the next minute if Sally contrasted my heavy silence 
with the blithe self-confidence and the sportive pleas- 
antries of Ned Marshall? Was she beginning already, 
unconsciously to her own heart, perhaps, to question 
if the passion I had given her would suffice to cover 
in her life the absence of the unspoken harmony in 


286 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


outward things? With the question there rose before 
me the figure of George Bolingbroke, as he bent over 
and laid the blossom of sweet alyssum beside her 
plate ; and, as at the instant in which I had watched 
him, I felt again the physical soreness which had 
become a part of my furious desire to make good my 
stand. 

When Bonny and Ned Marshall had mounted and 
ridden happily away in the dusk, Sally came back with 
me from the door, and stood, silent and pensive, for a 
moment, while she stroked my arm. 

You look tired, Ben. If you only wouldn’t work so 
hard.” 

‘‘1 must work. It’s the only thing I’m good for.” 

^^But I see so little of you and — and I get so lonely.” 

^^When I’ve won out. I’ll stop, and then you shall 
see me every living minute of the day, if you choose.” 

That’s so far off, and it’s now I want you. I’d 
like you to take me away, Ben — to take me some- 
where just as you did when we were married.” 

Her face was very soft in the firelight, and stooping, I 
kissed her cheek as she looked up at me, with a grave, 
almost pensive smile on her lips. 

wish I could, sweetheart, but I’m needed here so 
badly that I don’t dare run off for a day. You’ve 
married a working-man, and he’s obliged to stick to his 
place.” 

She said nothing more to persuade me, but from that 
evening until the spring, when our son was born, it 
seemed to me that she retreated farther and farther 
into that pale dream distance where I had first seen and 
desired her. With the coming of the child I got her 


IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE 


287 


back to earth and to reality, and when the warm little 
body, wrapped in flannels, was flrst placed in my arms, 
it seemed to me that the thrill of the mere physical 
contact had in it something of the peculiar starlike 
radiance of my bridal night. Sally, lying upon the 
pillow under a blue satin coverlet, smiled up at me with 
flushed cheeks and eyes shining with love, and while 
I stood there, some divine significance in her look, in 
her helplessness, in the oneness of the three of us drawn 
together in that little circle of life, moved my heart 
to the faint quiver of apprehension that had come to 
me while I stood by her side before the altar in old 
Saint John^s. 

When she was well, and the long, still days of the 
summer opened, little Benj amin was wrapped in a blue 
veil and taken in Aunt Euphronasia^s arms to visit 
Miss Mitty in the old grey house. 

What did she say, mammy? How did she receive 
him ? asked Sally eagerly, when the old negress 
returned. 

^^She ain^ said nuttin' ^tall, honey, cep^n ^huh,^ ” 
replied Aunt Euphronasia, in an aggrieved and resent- 
ful tone. ^^Dar she wuz a-settin’ jes^ ez prim by de 
side er dat ar box er sweet alyssum, en ez soon ez I lay 
eyes on her, I said, 'Howdy, Miss Mitty, hyer's Marse 
Ben’s en Miss Sally’s baby done come to see you.’ 
Den she kinder turnt her haid, like oner dese yer ole 
wedder cocks on a roof, en she looked me spang in de 
eye en said 'huh’ out right flat jes’ like dat.” 

"But didn’t you show her his pretty blue eyes, 
mammy?” persisted Sally. 

" Go way f’om hyer, chile. Miss Mitty done seen de 


288 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


eyes er a baby befo’ now. I knowed dat, en I lowed in 
my mind dat you ain’ gwinter git aroun^ her by pre- 
tending you kin show her nuttin\ So I jes^ begin ter 
sidle up ter her en kinder talk sof^ ez ef^n I ^uz a-talkin' 
ter myself. ^Dish yer chile is jes^ de spi^t er Marse 
Bland/ I sez, 'en dar ain^ noner de po^ wite trash in de 
look er him needer.^^' 

"Aunt Euphronasia, how dare you!” said Sally, 
sternly. 

"Well, ^tis de trufe, ain^t hit? Dar ain^ nuttin er de 
po’ wite trash in de look er him, is dar?” 

"And what did she say then, Aunt Euphronasia?” 

"Who? Miss Mitty? She sez 'huh’ again jes'* 
ez she done befo’. Miss Mitty ain’t de kind dat’s 
gwinter eat her words, honey. W’at she sez, she sez, en 
she’s gwinter stick up ter hit. The hull time I ’uz 
dar, I ain’ never yearn nuttin’ but ' huh ! ’ pass thoo 
her mouf.” 

"I knew she was proud, Ben, but I didn’t know she 
was so cruel as to visit it on this precious angel,” said 
Sally, on the point of tears; "and I believe Jessy is 
the same way. Nobody cares about him except his 
doting mother.” 

"What’s become of his doting father?” 

"Oh, his doting father is entirely too busy with his 
darling stocks.” 

"Sally,” I asked seriously, "don’t you understand 
that all this — everything I’m doing — is just for 3;'ou 
and the boy?” 

"Is it, Ben?” she responded, and the next minute, 
"Of course, I understand it. How could I help it?” 

She was always reasonable — it was one of her great* 


IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE 289 

est charms, and I knew that if I were to open my mind 
to her at the moment, she would enter into my troubles 
with all the insight of her resourceful sympathy. But 
I kept silence, restrained by some masculine instinct 
that prompted me to shut the business world outside 
the doors of home. 

Well, I must go down town, dear; I don^t see much 
of you these days, do 

^^Not much, but I know you^re here to stay and that^s 
a good deal of comfort.^' 

''I^m glad youVe got the baby. He keeps you 
company.’^ 

She looked up at me with the puzzling expression, 
half humour, half resentment, I had seen frequently 
in her face of late. If she stopped to question whethei* 
I really imagined that a child of three months was all 
the companionship required by a woman of her years, 
she let no sign of it escape the smiling serenity of her 
lips. On her knees little Benjamin lay perfectly quiet 
while he stared straight up at the ceiling with his round 
blue eyes like the eyes of an animated doll. 

^^Yes, he is company, she answered gently; and 
stooping to kiss them both, I ran downstairs, hurried 
into my overcoat, and went out into the street. 

As I closed the door behind me, I saw the GeneraFs 
buggy turning the corner, and a minute later he drew 
up under the young maples beside the pavement, and 
made room for me under the grey fur rug that covered 
his knees. 

don^t like the way things are behaving in Wall 
Street, Ben,’^ he said. '^Did that last smash cost you 
anything 


290 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


About two hundred thousand dollars. General, but 
I hadn’t spoken of it.” 

hope the bank hasn’t been loaning any more 
money to the Cumberland and Tidewater. I meant to 
ask you about that several days ago.” 

^^The question comes up before the directors this 
afternoon. We’ll probably refuse to advance any 
further loans, but they’ve already drawn on us pretty 
heavily, you understand, and we may have to go in 
deeper to save what we’ve got.” 

Well, it looks pretty shaky, that’s all I’ve got to say. 
If Jenkins doesn’t butt in and reorganise it, it will 
probably go into the hands of a receiver before the year 
is up. Is it the bank or your private investments 
you’ve been worrying over?” 

^^My own affairs entirely. You see I’d dealt pretty 
largely through Cross and Hankins, and I don’t know 
exactly what their failure will mean to me.” 

good many men in the country are asking them- 
selves that question. A smash like that isn’t over in a 
day or a night. But I’m afraid you’ve been spending 
too much money, Ben. Is your wife extravagant?” 

^^No, it’s my own fault. I’ve never liked her to 
consider the value of money.” 

^Ht’s a bad way to begin. Women have got it in 
their blood, and I remember my poor mother used to 
say she never felt that a dollar was worth anything 
until she spent it. If I were you, I’d pull up and go 
slowly, but it’s mighty hard to do after you’ve once 
started at a gallop.” 

don’t think I’ll have any trouble, but I hate like 
the deuce to speak of it to Sally.” 


IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE 


291 


^^That^s your damned delicacy. It puts me in mind 
of my cousin, Jenny Tyler, who married that scamp 
who used to throw his boots at her. Once when she 
was a girl she stayed with us for a summer, and old 
Judge Lacy, one of the ugliest men of his day, fell over 
head and heels in love with her. She couldnT endure 
the sight of him, and yet, if you’ll believe my word, 
though she was as modest as an angel, I actually found 
him kissing her one day in a summer-house. 'Bless 
my soul, Jenny!’ I exclaimed, 'why didn’t you tell 
that old baboon to stop hugging you and behave him- 
self?’ '0 Cousin George,’ she replied, blushing the 
colour of a cherry, 'I didn’t like to mention it.’ Now, 
that’s the kind of false modesty you’ve got, Ben.” 

"Well, you see. General,” I responded when he had 
finished his sly chuckle, "I’ve always felt that money 
was the only thing that I had to offer.” 

"You may feel that way, Ben, but I don’t believe 
that Sally does. My honest opinion is that it means a 
lot more to you than it does to her. There never was 
a Bland yet that didn’t look upon money as a vulgar 
thing. I’ve known Sally’s grandfather to refuse to 
invite a man to his house when the only objection he 
had to him was that he was too rich to be a gentleman. 
If you think it’s wealth or luxury or their old house 
that the Blands pride themselves on, you haven’t 
learned a thing about ’em in spite of the fact that you’ve 
married into the family. What they’re proud of is 
that they can do without any of these things ; they’ve 
got something else — whatever it is — that they con- 
sider a long sight better. Miss Mitty Bland would 
fitill have it if she went in rags and did her own cook- 


292 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

ing, and it^s this, not any material possessions, that 
makes her so terribly important. Look here, now, 
you take my advice and go home and tell Sally to stop 
spending money. How^s that boy of yours? Is he 
wanting to become a bank president already 

The old grey horse, rounding the corner at an amble, 
came suddenly to a stop as he recognised the half- 
grown negro urchin waiting upon the pavement. As if 
moved by a mechanical spring, the Generals expression 
changed at once from its sly and jolly good nature to the 
look of capable activity which marked the successful 
man of affairs. The twinkle in his little bloodshot eyes 
narrowed to a point of steel, the loose lines of his 
mouth, which was the mouth of a generous libertine, 
grew instantly sober, and even his crimson neck, 
sprawling over his puffy, magenta-coloured tie, stif- 
fened into an appearance of pompous dignity. 

^^Look sharp about the Cumberland and Tidewater, 
Ben,^^ he remarked as he turned to limp painfully into 
the railroad office. Then the glass doors swung together 
behind him, and he forgot my existence, while I crossed 
the street in a rush and entered the Union Bank, which 
was a block farther down on the opposite side. 

On the way home that afternoon, I told myself 
with determination that I would tell Sally frankly 
about the money I had lost', but when a little later 
she slipped her hand into my arm, and led me into the 
nursery to show me a trunk filled with baby^s clothes 
that had come down from New York, my courage 
melted to air, and I could not bring myself to dispel 
the pretty excitement with which she laid each separate 
tiny garment upon the bed. 


IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE 


293 


'^Oh, of course, you don’t enjoy them, Ben, as I do, 
but isn’t that little embroidered cloak too lovely?” 

^'Lovely, dear, only I’ve had a bad day, and I’m 
tired.” 

^^Poor boy, I know you are. Here, we’ll put them 
away. But first there’s something really dreadful I’ve 
got to tell you.” 

'^Dreadful, Sally?” 

Yes, but it isn’t about us. Do you know, I honestly 
believe that Jessy intends to marry Mr. Cottrel.” 

^'What? That old rocking-horse? Why, he’s a 
Methusalah, and knock-kneed into the bargain.” 

'Ht doesn’t matter. Nothing matters to her except 
clothes. I’ve heard of women who sold themselves for 
clothes, and I believe she’s one of them.” 

^^Well, we’re an eccentric family,” I said wearily, 
^^and she’s the worst.” 

At any other time the news would probably have 
excited my indignation, but as I sat there, in the 
wicker rocking-chair, by the nursery fire, I was too ex- 
hausted to resent any manifestation of the family 
spirit. The last week had been a terrible strain, and 
there were months ahead which I knew would de- 
mand the exercise of every particle of energy that 
I possessed. In the afternoon there was to be a meet- 
ing of the directors of the bank, called to discuss the 
advancing of further loans to the Cumberland and 
Tidewater Railroad, and at eight o’clock I had prom- 
ised to work for several hours with Bradley, my secre- 
tar5^ To go slowly now was impossible. My only hope 
was that by going fast enough I might manage to save 
what remained of the situation. 


294 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


As the winter passed I went earlier to my office and 
came up later. Failure succeeded failure in Wall 
Street, and the whole country began presently to send 
back echoes of the prolonged crash. The Cumberland 
and Tidewater Railroad, to which we had refused a 
further loan, went into the hands of a receiver, and the 
Great South Midland and Atlantic immediately bought 
up the remnants at its own price. The General, who 
had been jubilant about the purchase, relapsed into 
melancholy a week later over the loss of “ a good third 
of his personal income. 

^^I^m an old fool or I^d have stopped dabbling in 
speculations and put away a nest-egg for my old age,^^ 
he remarked, wiping his empurpled lids on his silk 
handkerchief.. ^^No man over fifty ought to be trusted 
to gamble in stocks. Thank God, I’m the one to suffer, 
however, and not the road. If there’s a more solid 
road in the country, Ben, than the South Midland, 
I’ve got to hear of it. It’s big, but it’s growing — • 
swallowing up everything that comes in its way, like 
a regular boa constrictor. Think what it was when I 
came into it immediately after the war ; and to-day it’s 
one of the few roads that is steadily increasing its 
earnings in spite of this blamed panic.” 

‘^You worked regeneration. General, as I’ve often 
told you.” 

“Well, I’m too old to see what it’s coming to. I 
hope a good man will step into my place after I’m 
gone. I’m sometimes sorry you didn’t stick by me, 
Ben.” 

He spoke of the great road in a tone of regretful 
sentiment which I had never found in his allusions to 


IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE 


295 


his lost Matoaca. The romance of his life, after all, 
was not a woman, but a railroad, and his happiest mem- 
ory was, I believe, not the Sunday upon which he had 
stood beside the rose-lined bonnet of his betrothed and 
sung lustily out of the same hymn-book, but the day 
when the stock of the Great South Midland and 
Atlantic had sold at 180 in the open market. 

^^1^11 tell you what, my boy,^^ he remarked with a 
quiver of his lower lip, which hung still farther away 
from his bloodless gum, a woman may go back on you, 
and the better the woman the more likely she is to do 
it, — but a road wonH, — no, not if it is a good road.’^ 

'^Well, I^m not getting much return out of the West 
Virginia and Wyanoke just now,’^ I replied. '^It^s no 
fun being a little road at the mercy of a big one when 
the big one is a boa constrictor. Even if you get a fair 
division of the rates, you don^t get your cars when you 
want them.^’ 

^^The moral of that,’^ returned the General, with a 
chuckle, ^^is, to quote from my poor old mammy again, 
^ Don’t hatch until you’re ready to hatch whole.’ ” 

We parted with a laugh, and I dismissed the affairs 
of the little railroad as I entered my office at the bank, 
where my private wire immediately ticked off the news 
of a state of panic in the money market. That was 
in February, and it was not until the end of March 
that the ice on which I was walking cracked under my 
feet and I went through. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


IN WHICH I GO DOWN 

I HAD just risen from breakfast on the last day of 
March when I was called to the telephone by Cummins, 
the cashier of the bank. 

'^Things are going pretty queer down here. Looks 
as if a run were beginning. Some old fool started it 
after reading about that failure of the Darlington Trust 
Company in New York. Wish you’d hurry.” 

‘^Call up the directors, and look here ! — pay out all 
deposits slowly until I get there.” 

The telephone rang off, and picking up my hat, I 
went down the front steps to the carriage, which had 
been ordered by Sally for an early appointment. As I 
stepped in, she appeared in her hat and coat and 
joined me. 

Drive to the bank, Micah,” I said, want to get 
there like lightning.” 

^Tan you wait till I speak to mammy? She is 
bringing the baby.” 

For the first time since our marriage my nerves got 
the better of me, and I answered her sharply. 

^^No, I can’t wait — not a minute, not a second. 
Drive on, Micah.” 

In obedience to my commands, Micah touched the 
horses, and as we sped down Franklin Street, Sally 
296 


IN WHICH I GO DOWN 


297 


looked at me with an expression which reminded me of 
the faint wonder under the fixed smile about Miss 
Mitty’s mouth. 

^^What^s the matter, Ben? Are you working too 
hard?^^ she enquired. 

'^I’m tired and I^m anxious. Do you realise that we 
are living in the midst of a panic 

''Are we?^' she asked quietly, and arranged the fur 
rug over her knees. 

"Do you mean to tell me you hadn^t heard it?^' 
I demanded, in pure amazement that the thing which 
had possessed me to madness for three months should 
have escaped the consciousness of the wife with whom 
I lived. 

"How was I to hear of it? You never told me, and I 
seldom read the papers now since the baby came. 
Of course I knew something was wrong. You were 
looking so badly and so much older.^^ 

To me it had needed no telling, because it had become 
suddenly the most obvious fact in the world in which 
I moved. Only a fool would gaze up at the sky during a 
storm burst and remark to a bystander, "It thunders.’^ 
Yet even now I saw that what she realised was not the 
gravity of the financial crisis, but its injurious effect 
upon my health and my appearance. 

"YouVe been on too great a strain,^^ she remarked 
sympathetically; "when it^s all over you must come 
away and we^ll go to Florida in the General’s car.” 

To Florida! and at that instant I was struggling 
in the grip of failure — the failure of the successful 
financier, which is of all failures the hardest. Not a 
few retrenchments, not the economy of a luxury here 


298 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


and there, but ultimate poverty was the thing that I 
faced while I sat beside her on the soft cushions under 
the rich fur rug. One by one the familiar houses whirled 
by me. I saw the doors open and shut, the people 
come out of them, the sunshine fall through the bud- 
ding trees on the sidewalk; and the houses and the 
moving people and the budding trees, all seemed to me 
detached and unreal, as if they stood apart somewhere 
in a world of quiet, while I was sucked in by the whirl- 
pool. Though I lifted my voice and called aloud to 
them, I felt that the people I passed would still go 
quietly in and out of the opening doors in the placid 
spring sunshine. 

‘^There^s Bonny Page,'^ said Sally, waving her hand; 
^^she^s to marry Ned Marshall next month, you know, 
and they are going to Europe. Did you notice that 
baby in the carriage — the one with blue bows and the 
Irish lace afghan? — it is Bessy Munford^s, — the hand- 
somest in town, they say, after little Benjamin.^’ 

The sight of the baby carriage, with its useless blue 
fripperies, trundled on the pavement under the budding 
trees, had aroused in me a sudden ridiculous anger, as 
though it represented the sinful extravagance of an entire 
nation. That silly carriage with its blue ribbons and its 
lace coverlet ! And over the whole country factory after 
factory was shutting down, and thousands of hungry 
mothers and children were sitting on door-steps in this 
same sunshine. My nerves were bad. It had been 
months since I had a good night^s sleep, and I knew 
that in the condition of my temper a trifle might be 
magnified out of all due proportion to its relative 
significance. 


IN WHICH I GO DOWN 


293 


The horses stopped at the bank, and Sally leaned out 
to bow smilingly to one of the directors, who was com- 
ing along the sidewalk. 

'‘I never saw so many people about here, Ben,^^ she 
remarked; ^4t looks exactly as if it were a theatre. 
Ah, there^s the General now going into his office. He 
hobbles so badly, doesnT he? When do you think 
youffi be home?^’ 

donT know,’^ I returned shortly, perhaps at 
midnight — perhaps next week.^^ 

My tone brought a flush to her cheek, and she looked 
at me with the faint wonder that I had seen first on the 
face of Miss Mitty when I went in to breakfast with her 
on that autumn morning. It was the look of race, 
of the Bland breeding, of the tradition that questioned, 
not violently, but gently, ^^Can this be possible?'^ 

She drove on without replying to me, and as I entered 
my office, the faces of Miss Mitty and of Sally were con- 
fused into one by my disordered mind. 

The run had already started — a depositor, who had 
withdrawn ten thousand dollars after reading of the 
failure of the Darlington Trust Company, had been paid 
off first, and following him the line had come, crawling 
like black ants on the pavement. As I entered the 
doors, it seemed to me that the face of each man or 
woman in the throng stood out, separate and distinct, 
as though an electric search-light had passed over it ; and 
I saw one and all, frightened, satisfied, or merely ludi- 
crous, with a vividness of perception which failed me 
when I remembered the features of my own wife. 

^'We can pay them off slowly till three o’clock,^' 
said Bingley, the vice-president, whom I found, with 


300 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


five or six of the directors, already in my office. ^^IVe 
got only one paying teller^s window open. The 
trouble, of course, began with the small accounts, 
of which we carry such a blamed lot. Mark my 
words, it is the little depositor that endangers a 
bank.^^ 

He looked nervous, and swallowed hastily while he 
talked, as if he had just rushed in from breakfast, with 
his last mouthful still unchewed. As I entered and 
faced the men sitting in different attitudes, but all 
wearing the same strained and helpless expression, a 
feeling of irritation swept over me, and I paused in the 
middle of the floor, with my hat and a folded newspaper 
in my hand. 

quarter of a million in hard cash would tide us 
over, I believe,^^ pursued Bingley, swallowing faster; 
'^but the question is how in thunder are we to lay hands 
on it by nine o^ clock to-morrow morning ? 

I drew out my watch, and with the simple, mechanical 
action, I was conscious of an immediate quickening 
of the blood, a clearing of the brain. A certain readi- 
ness for decision, a power of dealing with an emergency, 
of handling a crisis, a response of pulse and brain to the 
call for action, stood me service now as in every difficult 
instant of my career. They were picked business men 
and shrewd financiers before me, yet I was aware that I 
dominated them, all and each, by some quality of 
force, of aggressiveness, of inflated self-confidence. 
The secret of my success, I had once said to the General, 
was that I began to get cool when I saw other people 
getting scared. 

^Ht is now a quarter of te». gentlemen, I said, 


IN WHICH I GO DOWN 


301 


''and I pledge my word of honour that I will have a 
quarter of a million dollars in bank by ten o^ clock to* 
morrow/’ 

"For God’s sake, Ben, where is it coming from?” 
demanded Judge Kenton, an old Confederate, with 
the solemn face I had sometimes watched him a,ssume in 
church during the singing of the hymns. As 1 looked 
at him the humour of his expression struck me, ^nd I 
broke into a laugh. 

"I beg your pardon,” I returned the next minute, 
"but I’ll get it somewhere — if it’s in the city.” 

One of the men — I forget which, though I remember 
quite clearly that he wore a red necktie — got up from 
the table and slapped me on the shoulder. 

"Go ahead, Ben, and get it,” he said. " We take your 
word.” 

On the pavement the crowd had thickened, and 
when it caught sight of me, a confused murmur rose, 
and I was surrounded by half-hysterical women. The 
trouble, as Bingley had said, had begun with the small 
depositors ; and in the line that pressed now like black 
ants to the doors, there were many evidently who had 
entrusted their nest-eggs to us for safe-keeping. I was 
not gentle by nature, and the sight of a woman’s tears 
always aroused in me, not the angel, but the brute. 
For five years I had been married to a descendant of 
the Blands and the Fairfaxes, and yet, as I stood 
there, held at bay, in the midst of those sobbing women, 
the veneer of refinement peeled off from me, and the raw 
strength of the common man showed on the surface, and 
triumphed again as it had triumphed over the fright- 
ened directors in my office. 


302 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^What are you whining about? ” I said with a laugh, 
^'your money is all there. Go in and get it.^^ 

An old woman in a plaid shawl, with her mouth 
twisted sideways by a recent stroke of paralysis, barred 
my way with an outstretched hand, in which she held 
the foot of a grey yarn stocking. 

^^I^d laid it up for my old age. Mister,’^ she mumbled, 
through her toothless gums, ^'an^ they told me it was 
safer in the bank, so I put it there. But I reckon I^d 
feel easier if I had it back — I reckon I’d feel easier.” 

^^Then go after it,” I replied harshly, pushing her out 
of my way. ^^If you don’t get it before I come back. 
I’ll give it to you with my own hands.” 

For a minute my presence subdued the crowd; but 
the panic terror had gripped it, and while I crossed the 
street the hysterical murmurs were in my ears. A 
desire to turn and throttle the sound as I might a 
howling wild beast took possession of me. It was true, 
I suppose, as Dr. Theophilus had once told me, that the 
quality I lacked was tenderness. 

The General fortunately was alone in his private 
office, and when I went in he glanced up enquiringly 
from a railroad report he was reading. 

^'It’s you, Ben, is it?” he remarked, and went back 
to his paper. 

''General,” I said bluntly, and stopped short in the 
centre of the room, "I want a quarter of a million 
dollars in cash by nine o’clock to-morrow morning.” 

For a moment he sat speechless, blinking at me with 
his swollen eyelids, while his lower lip protruded angrily, 
like the lip of a crying child. Then the old war-horse in 
him responded gallantly to the scent of battle. 


m WHICH I GO DOWN 


303 


^^Damn you, Ben, do you know cash is as tight as 
wax?^' he enquired. '^You ain^t dozing in the midst 
of a panic ? 

“There^s trouble at the bank,’^ I replied. A run has 
started, but so far it is almost entirely among the small 
depositors. We can manage to pay off till three o^clock, 
and if we open to-morrow with a quarter of a million, 
we shall probably keep on our feet, unless the excite- 
ment spreads.^’ 

^^When do you want it?^’ 

^^By nine o’clock to-morrow morning; and I want it, 
General,” I added, ''on my personal credit.” 

He rose from his chair and stood swaying unsteadily 
on his gouty foot. 

"I’ll give you every penny that I’ve got, Ben,” he 
answered, "but it ain’t that much.” 

"You have access to the cash of both the Tilden 
Bank and the Bonfield Trust Company. If there’s a 
dollar in the city you can get it.” 

A hint of his sly humour appeared for an instant in 
his eyes. '^It wasn’t any longer ago than breakfast 
that I remarked I didn’t believe there was a blamed 
dollar in the whole country,” he returned. Then his 
swaying stopped and he became invested suddenly 
with the dignity of the greatest financier in the state. 

"Hand me my stick, Ben, and I’ll go and see what I 
can do about it,” he said. 

I gave him his stick and my arm, and with my assist- 
ance he limped to the offices of the Bonfield Trust 
Company on the next block. When I returned to the 
bank the directors were talking excitedly, but at my 
entrance a hush fell, and they sat looking at me with a 


304 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


row of vacant, expectant faces that waited apparently 
to be filled with expression. 

^^By ten o^ clock to-morrow morning, I said, 
quarter of a million in cash will be brought in through 
the door in bags.’^ 

told you he^d do it,’^ exclaimed Bingley, as he 
grasped my hand, ^'and I hope to God it will stay ^en^ 
off.^^ 

^^You need a drink, Ben,’’ observed Judge Kenton, 
‘^and so do I. Let’s go and get it. A soft-boiled egg 
was all I had for breakfast, and I’ve gone faint.” 

I remember that I went to a restaurant with him, thaC 
a few old women sitting on the curbing spoke to us a? 
we passed, that we ate oysters, and returned in half an 
hour to another meeting, that we discussed ways and 
means until eight o’clock and decided nothing. I 
know also that when we came out again several of the 
old women were still crouching there, and that when 
they came whining up to me, I turned on them with an 
oath and ordered them to be off. As clearly as if it 
were yesterday, I can see still the long, solemn face of 
the Judge as he glanced up at me, and I see written 
upon it something of the faint wonder that I had 
grown to regard as the peculiar look of the Blands. 

I had telephoned Sally not to wait, and when I 
reached home I found that she had dismissed the ser- 
vants and was preparing a little supper for me herself. 
While she served me, I sat perfectly silent, too ex- 
hausted to talk or to think, trying in vain to remem- 
ber the more important events of the day. Only once 
did Sally speak, and that was to beg me to eat the slice 
of cold turkey she had laid on my plate. 


IN WHICH I GO DOWN 


305 


not hungry, I got something with Judge 
Kenton down town,^^ I returned as I pushed back my 
chair and rose from the table; ^^what I need is sleep, 
sleep, sleep. If I don^t get to bed, 1^11 drop to sleep 
on the hearth-rug.^' 

“Then go, dear," she answered, and not until I 
reached the landing above did I realise that through 
it all she had not put a single question to me. With the 
realisation I knew that I ought to have told her what 
in her heart she must have felt it to be her right to 
know; but a nervous shrinking, which seemed to be 
a result of my complete physical exhaustion, held me 
back when I started to retrace my steps. 

She might cry, and the sight of tears would unman 
me. There's time enough, I thought. Why not to- 
morrow instead ? Yet in my heart I knew it would be 
no easier to do it to-morrow than it was to-day. By 
some strange freak of the imagination those unshed 
tears of hers seemed already dropping upon my nerveS: 
“There's time enough, she'll be obliged to hear it in 
the end," something within me repeated with a kind of 
dulness. And with the words, while my head touched 
the pillow, I started suddenly wide awake as though from 
the flash of a lantern that was turned inward. Trivial 
impressions of the afternoon stood out as if illuminated 
against the outer darkness, and there hovered before 
me the face of the old woman, in the plaid shawl, with 
her twisted mouth, and the foot of her grey yarn stock- 
ing held out in her palsied hand. “I reckon I'd feel 
easier if I had it back," said a voice somewhere in my 
brain. 


CHAPTER XXV 


WE FACE THE FACTS AND EACH OTHER 

The panic which had begun with the depositors of 
small accounts, spread next day to the holders of 
larger ones, and even while I stood at my window and 
watched the cash brought in in bags through the 
cheering crowd on the sidewalk, I knew that the quar- 
ter of a million dollars would go down with the rest. 
My financial insight had misled me, and the bank funds, 
which I had believed so carefully guarded, had suf- 
fered the same fate as my private fortune. There were 
more serious questions behind the immediate need of 
currency, and these questions drummed in my mind 
now, dull and regular as the beat of a hammer. 

For three days we paid off our accounts, and at the 
end of that time, when I left the building, after the run 
had stopped, it seemed to me that the city had a de- 
serted and trampled look, as if some enormous picnic 
had been held in the streets. A few loose shreds of 
paper, a banana peel here and there, the ends of numer- 
ous cigars, and the white patch torn from a woman^s 
petticoat littered the pavement. Over all there was 
a thick coating of dust, and the wind, blowing straight 
from the east, whipped swirls of it into our faces, as the 
General and I drove slowly up-town in his buggy. 

^^You look down in the mouth, Ben,^^ he remarked, 
as I took the reins. 


306 


WE FACE THE FACTS AND EACH OTHER 307 

^^Vve got an infernal toothache, General; it kept me 
awake all night 

^'Well, bless my soul, you ought to be thankful 
if it takes your mind off the country. I haven^t 
seen such a state of affairs since the days of recon- 
struction. I tell you, my boy, the only thing on earth 
to do is to take a julep. Lithia water is well enough 
in times of prosperity, but you can^t support a panic 
on it. IVe gone back to my julep, and if I die of it, 
lUl die with a little spirit in me.^^ 

^'There^re worse things than death ahead of me, 
General, there^s ruin.^^ 

^^It^s the toothache, Ben. Don^t let it take all the 
spirit out of you.^’ 

'^No, it’s more than the toothache, confound it!* — 
it never leaves off. The truth is, I’m in the tightest 
place of my life, and to keep what I own would cost me 
more than I’ve got. I haven’t the money to pay up 
— and if I can’t buy outright, you see that I must let 
go.” 

‘^I’ve done what I could for you, Ben, and if there is 
more I can do, heaven knows I’ll be thankful enough.” 

You’ve already done too much. General, but I’ve 
made sure that you shan’t suffer by it. I’ve simply 
gone down, that’s all, and I’ve got to stay there till I 
can get on my feet. The bank will close temporarily, 
I suppose, but when it starts again, it will have to 
start with another man. I shall look out for a smaller 
job.” 

^'If you come back to the road. I’ll find a place for 
you — but it won’t be like being a bank president, 
you know.” 


308 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

^^Well, when the time comes, 111 let you know,^’ I 
added, when the buggy stopped before my door, and 
I handed him the reins. 

Listen to me, my boy,’^ he called back, as he drove 
off and I went up the brown stone steps, ''and take a 
julep. 

But the support I needed was not that of whiskey, 
and though I swallowed a dozen juleps, the thought of 
Sally ^s face when I broke the news would suffer no 
blessed obscurity. 

"Shall I tell her now, or after dinner I asked, 
while I drew out my latch-key; and then when she 
met me at the head of the staircase, with her shining 
eyes, I grew cowardly again, and said, "Not now — 
not now. To-night I will tell her.^' 

At night, when we sat opposite to each other, with a 
silver bowl of jonquils between us, she began talking 
idly about the marriage of Bonny Page, inspired, I felt, 
by a valiant determination to save the situation in the 
eyes of the servants at least. The small yellow candle 
shades, made to resemble flowers, shone like suns in a 
mist before my eyes ; and all the time that my thoughts 
worked over the approaching hour, I heard, like a muf- 
fled undertone, the soft, regular footfalls of old Esdras, 
the butler, on the velvet carpet. 

"Ifll tell her after the servants have gone, and the 
house is quiet — when she has taken off her dinner 
gown — when she may turn on her pillow and cry it 
out. I’ll say simply, 'Sally, I am ruined. I haven’t 
a penny left of my own. Even the horses and the car- 
riages and the furniture are not mine ! ’ No, that is a 
brutal way. It will be better to put it like this — 


WE FACE THE FACTS AND EACH OTHER 309 

^'What did you say, dear?^^ I asked, speaking 
aloud. 

‘'Only that Bonny Page is to have six bridesmaids, 
but the wedding will be quiet, because they have lost 
money.^^ 

“ They Ve lost money 

“Everybody has lost money — everybody, the Gen- 
eral says. Ben, do you know,^^ she added, “IVe never 
cared truly about money in my heart/’ 

In some vague woman’s way she meant it, I sup- 
pose, yet as I looked at her, where she sat beyond the 
bowl of jonquils, in one of her old Paris gowns, which 
she had told me she was wearing out, I broke into a 
short, mirthless laugh. She held her head high, with 
its wreath of plaits that made a charming frame for 
her arched black eyebrows and her full red mouth. 
On her bare throat, round and white as a marble col- 
umn, there was an old-fashioned necklace of wrought 
gold, which had belonged to some ancestress, who 
was doubtless the belle and beauty of her generation. 
Was it possible to picture her in a common gown, with 
her sleeves rolled up and the perplexed and anxious 
look that poverty brings in her eyes ? For the first time 
in my life I was afraid to face the moment before me. 

The roast was removed, the dessert served, and 
played with in silence. The footfalls of old Esdras, the 
butler, sounded softer on the carpet, as he carried away 
the untasted pudding and brought coffee and an apri- 
cot brandy, which he placed before me with a per- 
suasive air. I lit a cigar at the flame of the little silver 
lamp he offered me, drank my coffee hurriedly, and 
rose from the table. 


310 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


'^Are you going to work, Ben?^^ asked Sally, follow- 
ing me to the door of the library. 

'^Yes, I am going to work.^^ 

Without a word she raised her lips to mine, and when 
I had kissed her, she turned slowly away, and went up 
the staircase, with the branching lights in the hall 
shining upon her head. 

I closed the door, lowered the wick of the oil lamp 
on my desk, and began walking up and down the length 
of the room, between the black oak bookcases filled 
with rows of calf-bound volumes. I tried to think, but 
between my thoughts and myself there obtruded al- 
ways, like some small, malignant devil, the face of the 
old woman on the pavement before the bank, with her 
distorted and twisted mouth. ^^This will have to go 
— everything will have to go — when IVe sold every 
last stick I have in the world, I shall still owe a debt 
of some cool hundreds of thousands. 1^11 pay that, 
too, some day. Of course, of course, but when ? 
Meanwhile, weVe got to live somewhere, somehow. 
There^s the child, too — and there^s Sally. I always 
said I^d only money to give her, and now I haven^t 
that. We^ll have to go into some cheap place, and 
1^11 begin over again, with the disadvantages of a failure 
behind me, and a burden of debt on my shoulders. 
She’s got to know — I’ve got to tell her. Confound 
that old woman! Why can’t I keep her out of my 
thoughts?” 

The hours went by, and still I walked up and down 
between the black oak bookcases, driven by some de- 
mon of torture to follow the same line in the Turkish 
rug, to turn always at the same point, to measure 
always the same number of steps. 


WE FACE THE FACTS ANB EACH OTHER 311 


^^Well, she got her money — they all got their 
money/’ I said at last. '‘I am the only one who is 
ruined — no, not the only one — there is Sally and 
there is the child. I’d feel easier,” I added, echoing 
the words of the old woman aloud, ^^I’d feel easier if I 
were the only one.” 

A clock somewhere in the city struck the hour of 
midnight, and while the sound was still in the air, the 
door opened softly and Sally came into the room. She 
had slipped on a wrapper over her nightdress, and her 
hair, flattened and warmed by the pillow, hung in a 
single braid over her bosom. There were deep circles 
under her eyes, which shone the more brilliantly because 
of the heavy shadows. 

^'What is the matter, Ben? Why don’t you come 
upstairs ? ” 

couldn’t sleep — I am thinking,” I answered, 
almost roughly, oppressed by my weight of misery. 

Would you rather be alone? Shall I go away again?” 

^^Yes, I’d rather be alone.” 

She went silently to the door, stood there a minute, 
and then ran back with her arms outstretched. 

'^Oh, Ben, Ben, why are you so hard? Why are 
you so cruel?” 

^^Cruel? Hard? To you, Sally?” 

You treat me as if — as if I’d married you for your 
money and you’ve made me hate and despise it. I wish 
— I almost wish we hadn’t a penny.” 

I laughed the bitter, mirthless laugh that had broken 
from me at dinner. 

''As a matter of fact we haven’t — not a single penny 
that we can honestly call our own.” 


312 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


She drew back instantly, her head held high under 
the branching electric jet in the ceiling. 

^^Well, I’m glad of it,” she responded defiantly. 

^'You don’t in the least understand what it means, 
Sally. It isn’t merely giving up a few luxuries, it is 
actually going without the necessities. It is practically 
beginning again.” 

am glad of it,” she repeated, and there was no 
regret in her voice. 

^'Oh, can’t you understand?” 

'^Tell me and I will try.” 

^^I’ve lost everything. I’m ruined.” 

^^There is nothing left?” 

There is honour,” I said bitterly, '^a couple of 
hundred thousand dollars of debt, and a little West 
Virginia railroad too poor to go bankrupt.” 

^^Then we must start from the very bottom?” 

^^From the very bottom. Nothing that you are 
likely to imagine can be worse than the facts — and 
I’ve brought you to it.” 

Something that was like a sob burst from me, and 
turning away, I fiung myself into the chair on the 
hearth-rug. 

^Tan’t you think of anything that would be worse?” 
she asked quietly. 

I shook my head, '^The worst thing about it is that 
I’ve brought you to it.” 

''Wouldn’t it be worse,” she went on in the same 
level voice, "if you had lost me?” 

"Lost you !” I cried, and my arms were open at the 
thought. 

"I’m glad, I’m glad.” With the words she was on 


WE FACE THE FACTS AND EACH OTHER 313 


her knees at my side, and her mouth touched my 
cheek. knew it wasn^t the worst, Ben, — I knew 
you^d rather give up the money than give up me. Ah, 
can’t you see — can’t you see, that the worst can’t 
come to us while we are still together?” 

Leaning over her, I gathered her to me with a hunger 
for comfort, kissing her eyes, her mouth, her throat, 
and the loosened braid on her bosom. 

^'Oh, you witch, you’ve almost made me happy!” I 
said. 

am happy, Ben.” 

^^Happy? The horses must go, and the carriage and 
the furniture even. We’ll have to move into some 
cheap place. I’ll get a position of some kind with the 
railroad, and then we’ll have to scrimp and save for 
an eternity, until we pay off this damned burden of 
debt.” 

She laughed softly, her mouth at my ear. '^I’m 
happy, Ben.” 

^^We shan’t be able to keep servants. You’ll have 
to wear old clothes, and I’ll go so shabby that you’ll 
be ashamed of me. We’ll forget what a bottle of 
wine looks like, and if we were ever to see a decent 
dinner, we shouldn’t recognise it.” 

Again she laughed, ^^I’m still happy, Ben.” 

We’ll live in some God-forsaken, out-of-the-way 
little hole, and never even dare ask a person in to a 
meal for fear there wouldn’t be enough potatoes to go 
around. It will be a daily uphill grind until I’ve man- 
aged to pay off honestly every cent I owe.” 

Her arms tightened about my neck, ^^Oh, Ben, I’m 
so happy.” 


314 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^Then you are a perfectly abandoned creature/^ I 
returned, lifting her from the rug until she nestled 
against my heart. ^^IVe given up trying to make you 
as miserable as a self-respecting female ought to be. 
If you won^t be proper and wretched, I can’t help it; 
for IVe done my best. And the most ridiculous part 
of it is, darling, that I actually believe I’m happy, too l’^ 

She laughed like a child between her kisses. ''Then, 
you see, it isn’t really the thing, but the way you take 
it that matters. ” 

"I’m not sure about the logic of that — but I’m in- 
clined to think just now that the only thing I’ve ever 
taken is you.” 

"If you’ll try to remember that, you’ll be always 
happy.” 

"But I must remember also that I’ve brought you 
to poverty — I, who had only money to give you.” 

"Do you dare to tell me to my face that I married 
you for money?” 

"You couldn’t very well have married me without 
it.” 

"I don’t know about the 'very well,’ but I know 
that I’d have done it.” 

"Do you think that, Sally?” 

Turning in my arms, she lifted her head, and looked 
steadily into my face. 

"Have I ever lied to you since we were married, 
Ben?” 

"No, darling.” 

"Have I ever deceived you?” 

"Never, I am sure,” I responded with a desperate 
levity, "except for my good.” 


WE FACE THE FACTS AND EACH OTHER 315 


“Have I ever deceived you/’ she demanded sternly, 
“even for your good?” 

“To tell the truth, I don’t believe you ever have.” 

The warm pressure of her body was withdrawn, and 
rising to her feet, she stood before me under the blaz- 
ing light. 

“Then I’m not lying to you when I say that I’d have 
married you if you hadn’t possessed a penny to your 
name — I’d have married you if — if I’d had to take 
in washing. ^ 

“Sally!” I cried, and made a movement to re- 
capture her ; but pushing me back, she stood straight 
and tall, with the fingers of her outstretched hand 
touching my breast. 

“No, listen to me, listen to me,” she said gravely. 
“As long as I have you and you love me, Ben, noth- 
ing can break my spirit, because the thing that makes 
life of value to me will still be mine. If you ever ceased 
to love me, I might get desperate, and do something 
wild and foolish — even run off with another man, I 
believe — I don’t know, but I am my father’s daughter, 
as well as my mother’s. Until that time comes, I can 
bear anything, and bear it with courage — with gaiety 
even. I can imagine myself without everything else, 
but not without you. I love my child — you know I 
love my child — but even my child isn’t you. If I 
had to choose to-night between my baby and you, I’d 
give him up, — and cling the closer to you. You are 
myself, and if I had to choose between everything else 
I’ve ever known in my life and you, I’d let everything 
else go and follow you anywhere — anywhere. There 
is nothing that you can endure that I cannot share with 


316 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


you. I can bear poverty, I could even have borne 
shame. If we had to go to some strange country far 
away from all I have ever known, I could go and go 
cheerfully. I can work beside you, I can work for you 
— oh, my dear, my dearest, I am your wife, do you 
still doubt me?^^ 

I had fallen on my knees before her, with her open 
palms pressed to my forehead, in which my very brain 
seemed throbbing. As I looked up at her, she stooped 
and gathered me to her bosom. 

^^Do you know me now?^^ she asked in a whisper. 

Then her voice broke, and the next instant she 
^vould have sunk down beside me, if I had not sprung 
to my feet and lifted her in my arms. While I held 
her thus, pressed close against me, something of her 
radiant strength entered into me, and I was aware of 
a power in myself that was neither hers nor mine, but 
the welding of the finer qualities in both our natures 


CHAPTER XXVI 


THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE 

Sally was not beside me when I awoke in the morn- 
ing, nor was she sipping her coffee by the window, as 
I had sometimes found her doing when I slept late. 
Going downstairs an hour afterwards, I discovered her, 
for the first time since our marriage, awaiting me in 
the dining-room. In her dainty breakfast jacket of 
blue silk, with a bit of lace and ribbon framing her 
wreath of plaits, she appeared to my tired eyes as the 
embodied freshness and buoyancy of the morning. 
Would her sparkling gaiety endure, I wondered, 
through the monotonous days ahead, when poverty 
became, not a child^s play, not a game tricked out by 
the imagination, but the sordid actuality of hard work 
and hourly self-denial ? 

am practising early rising, Ben,’^ she said, ''and 
it^s astonishing what an appetite it gives one. IVe 
made the coffee myself, and Aunt Mehitable has just 
taught me how to make yeast. One can never tell what 
may come useful, you know, and if we go to live some- 
where in a jungle, which I^m quite prepared to do, 
you’d be glad to know that I could make yeast, wouldn’t 
you?” 

"I suppose so, sweetheart, and as a matter of fact,” 
I added presently, "this is the best cup of coffee I’ve 
had for many a month.” 

Laughing merrily, she perched herself on the arm 

317 


318 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


of my chair, and sipped out of the cup I held toward 
her. “Of course it is. So youVe gained that much 
by losing everything. It^s very strange, Ben, and you 
may consider it presumptuous, but Vve a profound 
conviction somewhere in the bottom of my heart that 
I can do everything better than anybody else, if I once 
turn my hand to it. At this minute I haven^t a doubt 
that my yeast is better than Aunt Mehitable^s. I^m 
going to cook dinner, too, and she’ll be positively jeal- 
ous of my performance. How do we know whether or 
not we’ll meet any cooks in the jungle? And if we do, 
they’ll probably be tigers — ” 

“Oh, Sally, Sally ! You think it play now, but what 
will you feel when you know it’s earnest?” 

“Of course it’s earnest. Do you imagine I’d get out 
of my bed at seven o’clock and cut up a slimy potato 
if it wasn’t earnest? That may be your idea of play, 
but it’s not mine.” 

“And you expect to flutter about a stove in a pale 
blue breakfast jacket and a lace cap?” 

“Just as long as they last. When they go, I sup- 
pose I’ll have to take to calico, but it will be pretty 
calico, and pink. Pink calico don’t cost a penny more 
than drab — and there’s one thing I positively decline 
to do, even in a jungle, and that is look ugly.” 

“You couldn’t if you tried, my beauty.” 

“Oh, yes, I could — I could look hideous — any 
woman could if she tried. But as long as it doesn’t 
cost any more, you’ve no objection to my cooking in 
pink instead of drab, I suppose?” 

“I’ve an objection to your cooking in anything. 
Another cup of coffee, please.” 


THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE 


319 


“ Yes, dear.” 

You never drank but one of Aunt Mehitable^s.” 
aware of it, and I^m aware of something else. 
It^s worth being poor, Sally, to be poor with you.” 

^^Then give me another taste of your coffee. But 
3mu don’t call this being poor, do you, you silly 
boy ? — with all this beautiful mahogany that I can 
use for a mirror? This isn’t any fun in the world. 
Just wait until I spread the cloth over a pine table. 
Then we’ll have something to laugh at sure enough, 
Ben.” 

^^And I thought you’d cry !” 

^^You thought a great many very foolish things, my 
dear. You even thought I’d married you because I 
wanted to be rich, and it seemed an easy way.” 

^^Only it turned out to be an easier way of getting 
poor.” 

'^Well, rich or poor, what I married you for, after all, 
was the essential thing.” 

''And you’ve got it, sweetheart?” 

"Of course I’ve got it. If I didn’t have it, do you 
think I’d be able to laugh at a pine table?” 

"If I were only sure you realised it !” 

"You’ll be sure enough when we are in the midst 
of it, and we’ll be in the midst of it, I don’t doubt, in a 
little while. I’ve been thinking pretty hard since last 
night, and this is what I worked out while I was mak- 
ing yeast.” 

"Let’s have it, then.” 

"Now, the first thing we’ve got to do is to get out of 
debt, isn’t it?” 


320 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^'The very first thing, if it can be managed/^ 

We ’ll manage it this way. The furniture and the 
silver and my jewels must all be sold, of course; that’s 
easy. But even after we’ve done that, there’ll still be 
a great big burden to carry, I suppose?” 

^Tretty big, I’m afraid, for your shoulders.” 

'^Oh, we’ll pay it every bit in the end. We won’t 
go bankrupt. You’ll go back to the railroad on a 
salary, and we’ll begin to pinch on the spot.” 

^^Yes, but times are hard and salaries are low.” 
Anyway they’re salaries, there’s that much to be 
said for them. And while we’re pinching as hard as 
we can pinch, we’ll move over to Church Hill and rent 
two or three rooms in the old house with the enchanted 
garden. All the servants will have to go except Aunt 
Euphronasia, who couldn’t go very far, poor thing, 
because she’s rheumatic and can’t stand on her feet. 
She can sit still very well, however, and rock the baby, 
and I’ll look after the rooms and get the meals — I’m 
glad they’ll be simple ones — and we’ll put by every 
penny that we can save.” 

^'The mere interest on the debt will take almost as 
much as we can save. There’ll be some arrangement 
made, of course, and the payments will be easy, but 
there’s one thing I’m determined on, and that is that 
I’ll pay it, every cent, if I live. Then, too, there’s 
chance, you know. Something may turn up — some- 
thing almost always turns up to a man like my- 
self.” 

“Well, if it turns up, we’ll welcome it with open 
arms. But in the meantime we’ll see if we can’t scrape 
along without it. I’m going over this morning to look 


THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE 


321 


for rooms. How soon, Ben, do you suppose they will 
evict us?” 

'‘Does there exist a woman,” I demanded sternly, 
"who can be humorous over her own eviction?” 

"It^s better to be humorous over one^s own than over 
one^s neighbour’s, isn’t it? And besides, a laugh may 
help things, but tears never do. I was born laughing, 
mamma always said.” 

"Then laugh on, sweetheart.” 

I had risen from the table, and was moving toward 
the door, when she caught my arm. 

"There’s only one thing I’ll never, never consent to,” 
she said, "you remember Dolly?” 

"Your old mare?” 

"I’ve pensioned her, you know, and I’ll pay that 
pension as long as she lives if we both have to starve.” 

"You shall do it if we’re hanged and drawn for it — 
and now, Sally, I must be off to my troubles !” 

"Then, good-by and be brave. Oh, Ben, my dear- 
est, what is the matter?” 

"It’s my head. I’ve been worrying too much, and 
it’s gone back on me like that twice in the last few days.” 

I went out hurriedly, convinced that even failure 
wasn’t quite so bad as it had appeared from a distance ; 
and Sally, following me to the door, stood smiling after 
me as I went down the block toward the car line. 
Looking back at the corner, I saw that she was still 
standing on the threshold, with the sun in her eyes and 
her head held high under the ruffle of lace and ribbon 
that framed her hair. 

The street was filled with people that morning, and 
at the end of the first block Bonny Page nodded to 


322 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


me jauntily, as she passed on her early ride with Ned 
Marshall. Turning, almost unconsciously, my eyes 
followed her graceful, very erect figure, in its close black 
habit, swaying so perfectly with the motion of her 
chestnut mare. An immeasurable, wind-blown space 
seemed to stretch between us, and the very sound of 
the horse^s hoofs on the cobblestones in the street 
came to me, faint and thin, as if it had floated back 
from some remote past which I but dimly remembered. 
I had never felt, even when standing at Bonny^s side, 
that I was within speaking distance of her, and to-day, 
while I looked after the vanishing horses, I knew that 
odd, bafiling sensation of struggling to break through 
an inflexible, yet invisible barrier. Why was it that 
I who had won Sally should still remain so hopelessly 
divided from all that to which Sally by right and by 
nature belonged? 

Farther down the two great sycamores, still gaunt 
and bare as skeletons, stood out against a sky of in- 
tense blueness ; and on the crooked pavement beneath, 
the shadows, fine and delicate as lace-work, rippled 
gently in the wind that blew straight in from the river. 
Looking up from under the silvery boughs, I saw the 
vire cage of the canary between the parted curtains, 
and beyond it the pale oval face of Miss Mitty, with its 
grave, set smile, so like the smile of the painted Blands 
and Fairfaxes that hung, in massive frames, on the 
drawing-room walls. In the midst of my own ruin 
an impulse of compassion entered my heart. The 
vacancy of the old grey house was like the vacancy of 
a tomb in which the ashes have scattered, and the 
one living spirit seemed that of the canary singing joy- 


THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE 


323 


ously in his wire cage. Something in the song brought 
Sally to my mind as she had appeared that morning at 
breakfast, and I felt again the soft, comforting touch of 
the hand she had laid on my face. Then I turned my 
eyes to the street, and saw George Bolingbroke coming 
slowly toward me, beyond the last great sycamore, 
which grew midway of the bricks. At the sight of him 
all that had comforted or supported me crumbled and 
fell. In its place came that sharp physical soreness — 
like the soreness from violent action — that the shock 
of my failure had brought. I, who had meant so pas- 
sionately to win in the race, was suddenly crippled. 
Money, I had said, was all that I had to give, and yet 
I was beggared now even of that. Shorn of my power, 
what remained to me that would make me his 
match ? 

He came up, taking his cigar from his mouth as he 
stopped, and flicking the ashes away, while he stood 
looking at me with an expression of sympathy which 
he struggled in vain, I saw, to dissemble. On his 
finely coloured, though rather impassive features, 
there was the same darkening of a carefully suppressed 
emotion — the same lines of anger drawn, not by tem- 
per, but by suffering — that I had seen first at the club 
when his favourite hunter had died, and next on the day 
when the General had spoken to him, in my presence^ 
of my engagement to Sally. Under his short dark 
mustache, his thin, nervous lips were set closely to" 
gether. 

^H^m awfully cut up, Ben,^' he said, declare I 
donT know when I was ever so cut up about anything 
before/' 


324 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


cut up too, George, like the deuce, but it 
doesn^t appear to help matters, somehow.” 

'^That’s the worst thing about being a man of affairs 
like you — or like Uncle George,” he observed, making 
an amiable effort to assure me that even in the hour of 
adversity, I still held my coveted place in the GeneraPs 
class ; when the crash comes, you big ones have to pay 
the piper, while the rest of us small fry manage to go 
scot-free.” 

It was put laboriously, but beneath the words I 
felt the force of that painful sympathy, too strong for 
concealment, and yet not strong enough to break 
through the inherited habit of self-command. The 
General had broken through, I acknowledged, but then 
was not the very greatness of the great man the expres- 
sion of an erratic departure from traditions rather than 
of the perfect adherence to the racial type? 

^^And the louder the music the bigger the cost of the 
piper,” I observed, with a laugh. 

'^Oh, youT come out all right,” he rejoined cheer- 
fully, ^Hhings are never so bad as they might be.” 

'^Well, I donT know that there^s much comfort in 
reflecting that a thunder-storm might have been ac- 
companied by an earthquake.” 

For a moment he stood in silence watching the end 
of his cigar, which went out in his hand. Then without 
meeting my eyes he asked in a voice that had a curiously 
muffled sound : — 

'^IFs rough on Sally, isnT it? How does she stand 
it?” 

^‘As she stands everything — like an angel out of 
heaven.” 


THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE 


325 


'^Yes, you^re right — she is an angel,” he returned, 
still without looking into my face. An instant later, 
as if in response to an impulse which for once rose supe- 
rior to the dead weight of custom, he blurted out with 
a kind of suffering violence, say, Ben, you know 
it^s really awful. I^m so cut up about it I don^t know 
what to do. I wish you^d let me help you out of this 
hole till you^re on your feet. IVe got nobody on 
me, you see, and I can^t spend half of my income.” 

For the first time in our long acquaintance the 
tables were turned; it was George who was awkward 
now, and I who was perfectly at my ease. 

“I can^t do that, George,” I said quietly, ^^but I^m 
grateful to you all the same. You’re a first-rate chap.” 

We shook hands with a grip, and while he still lin- 
gered to strike a match and light the fresh cigar he had 
taken from his case, the little yellow flame followed, 
like an illuminated pointer, the expression of suffering 
violence which showed so strangely upon his face. 
Then, tossing the match into the gutter, he went on 
his way, while I passed the great scarred body of the 
sycamore and hurried down the long hill, which I 
never descended without recalling, as the General had 
said, that I had once 'Hoted potatoes for John Chit- 
ling.” 

At the beginning of the next block, I saw the minia- 
ture box hedge and the clipped yew in the little garden 
of Dr. Theophilus, and as I turned down the side street, 
the face of the old man looked at me from the midst of 
some leafless red currant bushes that grew in clumps 
at the end of the walk. 

"^^Come in. Ben. come in a minute,” he called, beam- 


326 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

ing at me over his lowered spectacles, ^Hhere’s a 
thing or two I should like to say/’ 

As I entered the garden and walked along the tiny 
path, bordered by oyster shells, to the red currant 
bushes beyond, he laid his pruning-knife on the ground, 
and sat down on an old bench beside a little green 
table, on which a sparrow was hopping about. On 
his seventy-fifth birthday he had resigned his profession 
to take to gardening, and I had heard from no less an 
authority than the General that ^^that old fool The- 
ophilus was spending more money in roses than Mrs. 
Clay was making out of pickles.” 

^^What is it, doctor?” I asked, for, oppressed by my 
own burdens, I waited a little impatiently to hear 
^Hhe thing or two” he wanted to say. 

“You see I’ve given up people, Ben, and taken to 
roses,” he began, while I stood grinding my heel into 
the gravelled walk; “and it’s a good change, too, when 
you come to my years, there’s no doubt of that. If 
you weed and water them and plant an occasional 
onion about their roots you can make roses what you 
want — but you can’t people — no, not even when 
you’ve helped to bring them into the world. No 
matter how straight they come at birth, they’re all 
just as liable as not to take an inward crank and go 
crooked before the end.” He looked thoughtfully at 
the sparrow hopping about on the green table, and his 
face, beautiful with the wisdom of more than seventy 
years, was illumined by a smile which seemed in some 
way a part of the April sunshine flooding the clumps 
of red currant bushes and the miniature box. “George 
— I mean old George — was telling me about you^ 


THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE 


327 


Ben/’ he went on after a minute, ^^and as soon as I 
heard of your troubles, I said to Tina — 'We’ve got 
a roof and we’ve got a bite, so they’ll come to us.’ 
What with Tina’s pickling and preserving we manage 
to keep a home, my boy, and you’re more than welcome 
to share it with us — you and Sally and your little 
Benjamin — ” 

"Doctor — doctor — ” was all I could say, for words 
failed me, and I, also, stood looking thoughtfully at 
the sparrow hopping about on the green table, with eyes 
that saw two small brown feathered bodies in the place 
where, a minute before, there had been but one. 

"Come when you’re ready, come when you’re ready,” 
he repeated, "and we’ll make you welcome, Tina and 
I.” 

I grasped his hand without speaking, and as I 
wrung it in my own, I felt that it was long and fine and 
nervous, — the hand, not of a worker, but of a dreamer. 
Then tearing my gaze from the sparrow, I went back 
through the clump of red currant bushes, and between 
the shining rows of oyster shells, to the busy street 
which led to a busy world and my office door. 

A fortnight later the house was sold over our heads, 
and when I came up in the afternoon, I found a red 
flag flying at the gate, and the dusty buggies of a few 
real estate men tied to the young maples on the side- 
walk. Upstairs Sally was sitting on a couch, in the 
midst of the scattered furniture, while George Boling- 
broke stood looking ruefully at a pile of silver and 
bric-a-brac that filled the centre of the floor. 

"Are you laughing now,^ Sally I asked desperately,, 
as I entered.. 


328 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^'Not just this minute, dear, because that awful man 
and a crowd of people have been going over the house, 
and Aunt Euphronasia and I locked ourselves in the 
nursery. I’ll begin again, however, as soon as they’ve 
gone. All these things belong to George. It was 
silly of him to buy them, but he says he had no idea of 
allowing them to go to strangers.” 

^^Well, George as well as anybody, I suppose,” I 
responded, moodily. 

Beside the window Aunt Euphronasia was rocking 
slowly back and forth, with little Benjamin fast asleep 
on her knees, and her great rolling eyes, rimmed with 
white, passed from me to George and from George 
to me with a defiant and angry look. 

^^I ain’ seen nuttin’ like dese yer doin’s sence war 
time,” she grumbled; '^en hit’s wuss den war time, 
caze war time hit’s fur all, en dish yer hit ain’t fur no- 
body cep’n us.” 

Throwing herself back on the pillow, Sally lay for a 
minute with her hand over her eyes. 

‘^I can laugh now,” she said at last, raising her 
head, and she, also, as she sat there, pale and weary 
but bravely smiling, glanced from me to George with 
a perplexed, inscrutable look. A minute later, when 
George made some pleasant, comforting remark and 
went down to join the crowd gathered before the door, 
her gaze still followed him, a little pensively, as he left 
the room. The bruise throbbed again; and walking 
to the window, I stood looking through the partly 
closed blinds to the street below, where I could see the 
dusty buggies, the switching tails of the horses, bothered 
by flies, and the group of real estate men, lounging, 


THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE 


329 


while they spat tobacco juice, by the red flag at the 
gate. In the warm air, which was heavy with the 
scent of a purple catalpa tree on the corner, the drawling 
voice of the auctioneer could be heard like the loud 
droning of innumerable bees. A carriage passed down 
the street in a cloud of dust, and the very dust, as 
it drifted toward us, was drenched with the heady 
perfume of the catalpa. 

^^That tree makes me dizzy,^^ I said; ^^it^s odd I 
never minded it before.^^ 

^^You aren’t well — that’s the trouble — but even 
if you were, the voice of that man down there is enough 
to drive any sane person crazy. He sounds exactly as 
if he were intoning a church service over our misfor- 
tunes. That is certainly adding horror to humilia- 
tion,” she finished with merriment. 

^^At any rate he doesn’t humiliate you?” 

^^Of course he doesn’t. Imagine one of the Blands 
and the Fairfaxes being humiliated by an auctioneer! 
He amuses me, even though it is our woes he is singing 
about. If I were Aunt Mitty, I’d probably be seated 
on the front porch with my embroidery at this minute, 
bowing calmly to the passers-by, as if it were the most 
matter-of-fact occurrence in the world to have an auc- 
tioneer selling one’s house over one’s head.” 

^^Dear old enemy, I wonder what she thinks of 
this?” 

^^She hasn’t heard it, probably. A newspaper 
never enters her doors, and do you believe she has a 
relative who would be reckless enough to break it to 
her?” 

hope she hasn’t, anyhow.” 


330 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^They haven^t had time to go to her. They have 
all been here. People have been coming all day with 
offers of help — even Jessyes Mr. Cottrel — and oh, 
Ben, she told me she meant to marry him ! Bonny 
Page,^' a little sob broke from her, Bonny Page wanted 
to give up her trip to Europe and have me take the 
money. Then everybody’s been sending me lunch- 
eons and jellies and things just exactly as if I were an 
invalid.” 

Hit’s de way dey does in war time, honey,” remarked 
Aunt Euphronasia, shaking little Benjamin with the 
slow, cradling movement of the arms known only to 
the negroes. 

Downstairs the auction was over, the drawling 
monologue was succeeded by a babel of voices, and 
glancing through the blinds, I saw the real estate men 
untying their horses from the young maples. A swirl 
of dust laden with the scent of the catalpa blew up 
from the street. 

^^But we can’t take help, Sally,” I said, almost 
fiercely. 

''No, we can’t take help, I told them so — I told 
them that we didn’t need it. In a few years we’d 
be back where we were, I said, and I believed it.” 

"Do you believe it after listening to that confounded 
fog-horn on the porch?” 

"Well, it’s a trial to faith, as Aunt Mitty would say^ 
but, oh, Ben, I really do believe it still.” 


CHAPTER XXVII 


WE CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND US 

It was a warm spring afternoon when we closed the 
door behind us for the last time, and took the car for 
Church Hill, where we had rented several rooms on the 
first floor of the house with the enchanted garden. 
As the car descended into the neighbourhood of the 
Old Market, with its tightly packed barrooms, its 
squalid junk shops, its strings of old clothes waving 
before darkened, ill-smelling doorways, I seemed to 
have stepped suddenly backward into a place that was 
divided between the dream and the actuality. I 
remembered my awakening on the pile of straw, with 
the face of John Chitling beaming down on me over the 
wheelbarrow of vegetables; and the incidents of that 
morning — the long line of stalls giving out brilliant 
flashes from turnips and onions, the sharp. Ashy odour 
from the strings of mackerel and perch, the very blood- 
stains on the apron and rolled-up sleeves of the butcher 
— all these things were more vivid to my consciousness 
than were the faces of Sally and of Aunt Euphronasia, 
or the fretful cries of little Benjamin, swathed in a blue 
veil, in the old negress^s lap. I had meant to make 
good that morning, when I had knelt there sorting the 
yellow apples. I had made good for a time, and yet 
to-day I was back in the place from which I had started. 
Well, not in the same place, perhaps, but my foot had 
331 


332 


THE ROMANCE OP A PLAIN MAN 


slipped on the ladder, and I must begin again, if not 
from the very bottom, at least from the middle rung. 
The market wagons, covered with canvas, were still 
standing with empty shafts in the littered street, 
as if they had waited there, a shelter for prowling 
dogs, until my return. Mrs. Chitling^s slovenly door- 
step I could not see, but as we ascended the long hill 
on the other side, I recognised the musty ^'old clothes 
shop, in which I had stumbled on ^^Sir Charles Gran- 
dison^' and Johnson^s Dictionary. That minute, 
I understood now, had been in reality the turning- 
point in my career. In that close-smelling room I 
had come to the cross-roads of success or failure, and 
swerving aside from the dull level of ignorance, I had 
rushed, almost by accident, into the better way. The 
very odour of the place was still in my nostrils — a 
mixture of old clothes, of stale cheese, of overripe 
melons. A sudden dizziness seized me, and a wave of 
physical nausea passed over me, as if the intense heat 
of that past summer afternoon had gone to my head. 

The car stopped at the corner of old Saint John’s; 
we got out, assisting Aunt Euphronasia, and then 
turned down a side street in the direction of our new 
home. As we mounted the curving steps, Sally passed 
a little ahead of me, and looked back with her hand on 
the door. 

am happy, Ben,” she said with a smile ; and with 
the words on her lips, she crossed the threshold and 
entered the wide hall, where the moth-eaten stags’ heads, 
worn bare of fur, still hung on the faded plaster. 

My first impression upon entering the room, was that 
the strange surroundings struck with a homelike and 


WE CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND US 


333 


familiar aspect upon my consciousness. Then, as be- 
wilderment gave place before a closer scrutiny, I saw 
that this aspect was due to the presence of the objects 
by which I had been so long accustomed to see Sally 
surrounded. Her amber satin curtains hung at the 
windows ; the deep couch, with the amber lining, upon 
which she rested before dressing for dinner, stood near 
the hearth; and even the two crystal vases, which I 
had always seen holding fresh flowers upon her small, 
inlaid writing desk, were filled now with branching 
clusters of American Beauty roses. Beyond them, and 
beyond the amber satin curtains at the long window, 
I saw the elm boughs arching against a pale gold sunset 
into which a single swallow was flying. And I remem- 
ber that swallow as I remember the look, swift, expect- 
ant, as if it, also, were flying, that trembled, for an 
instant, on Sally’s face. 

^Ht is George,” she said, turning to me with radiant 
eyes; ''George has done this. These are the things he 
bought, and I wondered so what he would do with 
them.” Then before something in my face, the radi- 
ance died out of her eyes. "Would you rather he 
didn’t do it? Would you rather I shouldn’t keep 
them?” she asked. 

A struggle began within me. Through the window I 
could see still the pale gold sunset beyond the elms, 
but the swallow was gone, and gone, also, from Sally’s 
face was the look as of one flying. 

"Would you rather that I shouldn’t keep them?” 
she asked again, and her voice was very gentle. 

At that gentleness the struggle ceased as sharply as 
it had begun. 


334 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


as you choose, darling, you know far better 
than I,” I replied ; and bending over her, I raised her 
chin that was lowered, and kissed her lips. 

A light, a bloom, something that was fragrant and 
soft as the colour and scent of the American Beauty 
roses, broke over her as she looked up at me with her 
mouth still opening under my kiss. 

^^Then 1^11 keep them,’^ she answered, because it 
would hurt him so, Ben, if I sent them back.^^ 

The colour and bloom were still there, but in my heart 
a chill had entered to drive out the warmth. My ruin, 
my failure, the poverty to which I had brought Sally 
and the child through my inordinate ambition, and 
the weight of the two hundred thousand dollars of debt 
on my shoulders — all these things returned to my 
memory, with an additional heaviness, like a burden 
that has been lifted only to drop back more crushingly. 
And as always in my thoughts now, this sense of my 
failure came to me in the image of George Bolingbroke, 
with his air of generous self-sufficiency, as if he needed 
nothing because he had been born to the possession of 
all necessary things. 

Sally drew the long pins from her hat, laid them, 
with the floating white veil and her coat, on a chair 
in one corner, and began to move softly about in her 
restful, capable way. Her very presence, I had once 
said of her, would make a home, and I remembered 
this a little later as I watched the shadow of her head 
flit across the faded walls above the fine old wainscot- 
ing, from which the white paint was peeling in places. 
Her touch, swift and unfaltering, released some spirit 
of beauty and cheerfulness which must have lain im- 


WE CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND US 


335 


prisoned for a generation in the superb old rooms. 
On the floor with us there were no other tenants, but 
when I heard an occasional sound in the room above, 
I remembered that the agent had told me of an aris- 
tocratic, though poverty-stricken, maiden lady, who 
was starving up there in the midst of some rare pieces 
of old Chippendale furniture, and with the portrait of 
an English ancestress by Gainsborough hanging above 
her fireless hearth. 

'^The baby is asleep, so Aunt Euphronasia and I are 
cooking supper,’^ said Sally, when she had spread the 
cloth over the little table, and laid covers for two on 
either side of the shaded lamp; ^^at least she^s cooking 
and I^m serving. Come into the garden, Ben, before 
it^s ready, and run with me down the terrace.^' 

'^The garden is ruined. I saw it when I came over 
with the agent.” 

Ruined? And with such lilacs ! They are a little 
late because of the cold spring, but a perfect bower.” 

She caught my hand as she spoke, and we passed 
together through the long window leading from our 
bedroom to the porch, where a few startled swallows 
flew out, crying harshly, from among the white columns. 
Many of the elms had died; the magnolias and la- 
burnums, with the exception of a few stately trees,, 
had decayed on the terrace, and the thick maze of box 
was now thin and rapidly dwindling away from the 
gravelled paths. On the ground, under the young 
green of dandelion and wild violets, the rotting leaves 
of last year were still lying ; and as we aescended the 
steps, and followed the littered walks down the hillside, 
broken pieces of pottery crumbled beneath our feet. 


336 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Clasping hands like two children, we stood for a 
minute in silence, with our eyes on the ruin before us, 
and the memory of the enchanted garden and our first 
love in our thoughts. Then, “Oh, Ben, the lilacs 
said Sally, softly. 

They were there on all sides, floating like purple and 
white clouds in the wind, and shedding their delicious 
perfume over the scattered rose arbours and the 
dwindling box. Light, delicate, and brave, they had 
withstood frost and decay, while the latticed summer 
houses had fallen under the weight of the microphylla 
roses that grew over them. The wind now was laden 
with their sweetness, and the golden light seemed aware 
of their colour as it entered the garden softly through 
the screen of boughs. 

“Do you remember the first day, Ben?’^ 

“The first day? That was when President lifted 
me on the wall — and even the wall has gone.^^ 

“Did you dream then that youM ever stand here 
with me like this?^^ 

“I dreamed nothing else. IVe never dreamed any^ 
thing else.^' 

“Then you arenT so very unhappy as long as we are 
together?^' 

“Not so unhappy as I might be, but, remember, 
I^m a man, Sally, and I have failed.^' 

“Yes, you^re a man, and you couldnT be happy 
even with me — without something else.^' 

“The something else is a part of you. It belongs 
to you, and that^s mostly why I want to make good. 
These debts are like a dead weight — like the Old 
Man of the' Sea — on my shoulders. Until I^m able 
to shake them off, I shall not stand up straight.” 


WE CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND US 


337 


glad youVe gone back to the railroad/^ 
There are a lot of men in the railroad, and very 
few places. The General found me this job at six 
thousand a year, which is precious little for a man of 
my earning capacity. They'll probably want to send 
me down South to build up the traffic on the Tennessee 
and Carolina, — I don't know. It will take me a month 
anyway to wind up my affairs and start back with the 
road. Oh, it's going to be a long, hard pull when it 
once begins." 

Pressing her cheek to my arm, she rubbed it softly 
up and down with a gentle caress. ^^Well, we'll pull 
it, never fear," she responded. 

At our feet the twilight rose slowly from the sunken 
terrace, and the perfume of the lilacs seemed to grow 
stronger as the light faded. For a moment we stood 
drawn close together ; then turning, with my arm still 
about her, we went back over the broken pieces of 
pottery, and ascending the steps, left the pearly after- 
glow and the fragrant stillness behind us. 

Half an hour later, when we were in the midst of our 
supper, which she had served with gaiety and I had 
eaten with sadness, a hesitating knock came at the 
door leading into the dim hall, and opening it with sur- 
prise, I was confronted by a small, barefooted urchin, 
who stood, like the resurrected image of my own child- 
hood, holding a covered dish at arm's length before him. 

^Hf you please, ma'am," he said, under my shoulder, 
to Sally, who was standing behind me, ^^ma's jest heard 
you'd moved over here, an' she's sent you some waffles 
for supper." 

^^And what may ma's name be?" enquired Sally 


338 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


politely, as she removed the red and white napkin 
which covered the gift. 

^^Ma^s Mrs. Titterbury, an’ she lives jest over yonder. 
She says she’s been a-lookin’ out for you an’ she hopes 
you’ve come to stay.” 

That’s very kind of her, and I’m much obliged. 
Tell her to come to see me.” 

She’s a-comin’, ma’am,” he responded cheerfully, 
and as he withdrew, his place was immediately filled 
by a little girl in a crimson calico, with two very tight 
and very slender braids hanging down to her waist in 
the back. 

^^Ma’s been makin’ jelly an’ syllabub, an’ she thought 
you might like a taste,” she said, offering a glass dish. 
^^Her name is Mrs. Barley, an’ she lives around the 
corner.” 

These are evidently our poorer neighbours,” ob- 
served Sally, as the door closed after the crimson calico 
and the slender braids ; where are the well-to-do ones 
that live in all the big houses around us?” 

'^It probably never occurred to them that we might 
want a supper. It’s the poor who have imagination. 
By Jove ! there’s another !” 

This time it was a stout, elderly female in rusty black, 
with a very red face, whom, after some frantic groping 
of memory, I recognised as Mrs. Cudlip, unaltered ap- 
parently by her thirty years of widowhood. 

I jest heard you’d moved back over here, Benjy,” 
she remarked, and at the words and the voice, I seemed 
to shrink again into the small, half-scared figure clad 
in a pair of shapeless breeches which were made out 
of an old dolman my mother had once worn to funerals. 


WE CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND US 


339 


I thought as you might like a taste of muffins 
made arter the old receipt of yo^ po^ ma^s — the very 
same kind of muffins she sent me by you on the mornin’ 
arter I buried my man/^ 

Placing the dish upon the table, she seated herself, 
In response to an invitation from Sally, and spread 
her rusty black skirt, with a leisurely movement, 
over her comfortable lap. As I looked at her, I forgot 
that I stood six feet two inches in my stockings; I 
forgot that I had married a descendant of the Blands 
and the Fairfaxes; and I remembered as plainly as if 
it were yesterday, the morning of the funeral, when, 
with my mother^s grey blanket shawl pinned on my 
shoulders, I had sat on the step outside and waited 
for the service to end, while I made scornful faces at 
the merry driver of the hearse. 

^^It^s been going on thirty years sence yo^ ma died, 
ain^t it, Benjy she enquired, while I struggled vainly 
to recover a proper consciousness of my size and my 
importance. 

was a little chap at the time, Mrs. Cudlip,’^ I 
returned. 

^'An^ it^s been twenty, I reckon,” she pursued 
reminiscently, sence yo^ pa was took. Wall, wall, 
time does fly when you come to think of deaths, now, 
doesn^t it? I always said thar wa^nt nothin’ so cal- 
culated to put cheer an’ spirit into you as jest to re- 
member the people who’ve dropped off an’ died while 
you’ve been spared. You didn’t see much of yo’ pa 
durin’ his last days, did you?” 

Never after I ran away, and that was the night he 
brought his second wife home.” 


340 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


“He had a hard time toward the end, but I reckon 
she had a harder. It wa’nt that he was a bad man at 
bottom, but he was soft-natured an’ easy, an’ what he 
needed was to be belt an’ to be helt steady. Some 
men air like that — they can’t stand alone a minute 
without beginnin’ to wobble. Now as long as yo’ 
ma lived, she kept a tight hand on yo’ pa, an’ he stayed 
straight ; but jest as soon as he was left alone, he began 
to wobble, an’ from wobblin’ he took to the bottle, and 
from the bottle he took to that brass-headed huzzy he 
married. She was the death of him, Benjy; I ought 
to know, for I lived next do’ to ’em to the day of his 
burial. As to that, anyway, ma’am,” she added to 
Sally, “my humble opinion is that women have killed 
mo’ men anyway than they’ve ever brought into the 
world. It’s a po’ thought, I’ve al’ays said, in which 
you can’t find some comfort.” 

“You were very kind to him, I have heard,” I ob- 
served, as she paused for breath and turned toward 
me. 

“It wa’nt mo’n my duty if I was, Benjy, for yo’ ma 
was a real good neighbour to me, an’ many’s the plate 
of buttered muffins you’ve brought to my do’ when 
you wa’nt any higher than that.” 

It was true, I admitted the fact as gracefully as I 
could. 

“My mother thought a great deal of you,” I remarked. 

“You don’t see many of her like now,” she returned 
with a sigh, “the mo’s the pity. 'Thar ain’t room for 
two in marriage,’ she used to say, 'one of ’em has got 
to git an’ I’d rather ’twould be the other ! ’ ’Twa’nt 
that way with the palaverin’ yaller-headed piece that 


WE CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND US 


341 


yo^ pa married arterwards. She’d a sharp enough 
tongue, but a tongue don’t do you much good with 
a man unless he knows you’ve got the backbone be- 
hind to drive it. It ain’t the tongue, but the back- 
bone that counts in marriage. At first he was mighty 
soft, but befo’ two weeks was up he’d begun to beat 
her, an’ I ain’t got a particle of respect for a woman 
that’s once been beaten. Men air born mean, I know, 
it’s thar natur, an’ the good Lord intended it ; but, all 
the same, it’s my belief that mighty lew women come 
in for a downright beatin’ unless they’ve bent thar 
backs to welcome it. It takes two to make a beatin’ 
the same as a courtin’, an’ whar the back ain’t ready, 
the blows air slow to fall.” 

^^I never saw her but once, and then I ran away,” 
I remarked to fill in her pause. 

^^Wall, you didn’t miss much, or you either, ma’am,” 
she rejoined politely; ^^she was the kind that makes an 
honest woman ashamed to belong to a sex that’s got 
to thrive through foolishness, an’ to git to a place by 
sidlin’ backwards. That wa’nt yo’ ma’s way, Benjy, 
an’ I’ve often said that I don’t believe she ever hung 
back in her life an’ waited for a man to hand her what 
she could walk right up an’ take holt of without his 
help. ^The woman that waits on a man has got a 
long wait ahead of her,’ was what she used to 
t^ay.” 

Rising to her feet, she stood with the empty plate 
in her hand, and her back ceremoniously bent in a 
parting bow. 

^'Is that yo’ youngest ? Now, ain’t he a fine baby !” 
she burst out, as little Benjamin appeared, crowing, 


342 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


in the arms of Aunt Euphronasia, ^^an he^s got all the 
soft, pleasant look of yo’ po’ pa already/’ 

I opened the door, and with a last effusive good-by, 
she passed out in her stiff, rustling black, which looked 
as if she had gone into perpetual mourning. 

^^Will you have some syllabub, Ben?'’ enquired 
Sally primly, as the door closed. 

Sally, how will you stand it?" 

'^She wants to be kind — she really wants to be." 

Crossing moodily to the table, I pushed aside the 
waffles, the muffins, and the syllabub, with an angry 
gesture. 

^^It is what I came from, after all. It is my class." 

‘^Your class?" she repeated, laughing and sobbing 
together with her arms on my shoulders. There's 
nobody else in the whole world in your class, Ben." 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS 

A WEEK or two later the General stopped me as I 
was leaving his office. 

don^t like the look of you, Ben. WhaPs the 
matter 

head has been troubling me, General. It^s 
been splitting for a week, and I can^t see straight.’^ 

^^YouVe thought too much, thaPs the mischief. 
Why not cut the whole thing and go West with me 
to-morrow in my car? 1^11 be gone for a month.’^ 

'HPs out of the question. A man who is over head 
and ears in debt oughtn’t to be spinning about the 
country in a private car.” 

I don’t see the logic of that as long as it’s some- 
body else’s car.” 

You’d see it if you had two hundred thousand 
dollars of debt.” 

'^Well, I’ve been worse off. I’ve had two hundred 
thousand devils of gout. Here, come along with me. 
Bring Sally, bring the youngster. I’ll take the whole 
bunch of ’em.” 

When I declined, he still urged me, showing his an- 
noyance plainly, as a man does in whom opposition 
even in trifles arouses a resentful, almost a violent, spirit 
of conquest. So, I knew, he had pursued every aim, 
great or small, of his life, with the look in his face of an 
343 


344 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


intelligent bulldog, and the conviction somewhere in 
his brain that the only method of overcoming an ob- 
stacle was to hang on, if necessary, until the obstacle 
grew too w’eak to put forth further resistance. Once, 
and once only, to my knowledge, had this power to 
hang on, this bulldog grip, availed him but little, and 
that was when his violence had encountered a gentle- 
ness as soft as velvet, yet as inflexible as steel. In his 
whole life only poor little Miss Matoaca had withstood 
him ; and as I met the angry, indomitable spirit in his 
eyes, there rose before me the figure of his old love, 
with her look of meek, unconquerable obstinacy and 
with the faint fragrance and colour about her that was 
like the fragrance and colour of faded rose-leaves. 

^^There^s no use, General. I can’t do it,” I said at 
last, and parting from him at the corner, I signalled 
the car for Church Hill, while he drove slowly up-town 
in his buggy. 

It was a breathless June afternoon. A spell of in- 
tense early heat had swept over the country, and the 
summer flowers were unfolding as if forced open in the 
air of a hothouse. At the door Sally met me with a 
telegram from Jessy announcing her marriage to Mr. 
Cottrel in New York; but the words and the fact 
seemed to me to have no nearer relation to my life 
than if they had described the romantic adventures of 
a girl, in a crimson blouse, who was passing along the 
pavement. 

^^Well, she’s got what she wanted,” I remarked 
indifferently, ^^so she’s to be congratulated, I suppose. 
My head is throbbing as if it would break open. I’ll 
go in and lie down in the dusk, before supper.” 


IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS 


345 


the flowers bother you? Shall I take them 
away?^’ she asked, following me into the bedroom, 
and closing the shutters. 

don^t notice them. This confounded headache 
is the only thing I can think of. It hasn't let up a 
single minute." 

Bending over me, she laid her cheek to mine, and 
stroked the hair back from my forehead with her small, 
cool hand, which reminded me of the touch of roses. 
Then going softly out, she closed the door after her, 
while I turned on my side, and lay, half asleep, half 
awake, in the deepening twilight. 

From the garden, through the open blinds of the 
green shutters, floated the strong, sweet scent of the 
jessamine blooming on the columns of the piazza; and 
I heard, now and then, as if from a great distance, the 
harsh, frightened cry of a swallow as it flew out from its 
nest under the roof. A sudden, sharp realisation of 
imperative duties left undone awoke in my mind ; and 
I felt impelled, as if by some outward pressure, to rise 
and go back again down the long, hot hill into the 
city. There's something important I meant to do, 
and did not," I thought; ^^as soon as this pain stops, 
I suppose I shall remember it, and why it is so urgent. 
If I can only sleep for a few minutes, my brain will 
clear, and then I can think it out, and everything that 
is so confused now will be easy." In some way, I 
knew that this neglected duty concerned Sally and the 
child. I had been selflsh with Sally in my misery. 
When I awoke with a clear head, I would go to her and 
say I was sorry. 

The scent of the jessamine became suddenly so in- 


346 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


tense that I drew the coverlet over my face in the effort 
to shut it out. Then turning my eyes to the wall, I lay 
without thinking or feeling, while my consciousness 
slowly drifted outside the closed room and the penetrat- 
ing fragrance of the garden beyond. Once it seemed 
to me that somebody came in a dream and bent over 
me, stroking my forehead. At first I thought it was 
Sally, until the roughness of the hand startled me, and 
opening my eyes, I saw that it was my mother, in her 
faded grey calico, with the perplexed and anxious look 
in her eyes, as if she, too, were trying to remember 
some duty which was very important, and which she 
had half forgotten. ^^Why, I thought you were dead!’^ 
I exclaimed aloud, and the sound of my own voice 
waked me. 

It was broad daylight now ; the shutters were open, 
and the breeze, blowing through the long window, 
brought the scent of jessamine distilled in the sunshine 
beyond. It seemed to me that I had slept through an 
eternity, and with my first waking thought, there 
revived the same pressure of responsibility, the same 
sense of duties, unfulfilled and imperative, with which 
I had turned to the wall and drawn the coverlet over 
my face. '^I must get up,’^ I said aloud; and then, 
as I lifted my hand, I saw that it was wasted and 
shrunken, and that the blue veins showed through the 
flesh as through delicate porcelain. Then, ^^IVe 
been ill,^' I thought, and ''Sally? Sally?'' The 
effort of memory was too great for me, and without 
moving my body, I lay looking toward the long win- 
dow, where Aunt Euphronasia sat, in the square of 
sunshine, crooning to little Benjamin, while she rocked 


IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS 


347 


slowly back and forth, beating time with her foot to 
the music. 

Oh, we’ll ride in de golden cha’iot, by en bye, liP chillun. 

We’ll ride in de golden cha’iot, by en bye. 

Oh, we’se all gwine home ter glory, by en bye, lil’ chillun, 

We’se all gwine home ter glory by en bye. 

Oh, we’ll drink outer de healin’ fountain, by en bye, lil’ 
chillun, 

We’ll drink outer de healin’ fountain by en bye.” 

Sally I called aloud, and my voice sounded 
thin and distant in my own ears. 

There was the sound of quick steps, the door opened 
and shut, and Sally came in and leaned over me. She 
wore a blue gingham apron over her dress, her sleeves 
were rolled up, and her hand, when it touched my face, 
felt warm and soft as if it had been plunged into hot 
soapsuds. Then my eyes fell on a jagged burn on her 
wrist. 

^^What is that?’^ I asked, pointing to it. YouH’e 
hurt yourself.^’ 

'^Oh, Ben, my dearest, are you really awake 

^^What is that, Sally? You have hurt yourself.’’ 
burned my hand on the stove — it is nothing. 
Dearest, are you better? Wait. Don’t speak till 
you take your nourishment.” 

She went out, returning a moment later with a glass 
of milk and whiskey, which she held to my lips, sit- 
ting on the bedside, with her arm slipped under my 
pillow. 

^^How long have I been ill, Sally?” 


348 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Several weeks. You became conscious and then 
had a relapse. Do you remember 

^^No, I remember nothing.” 

^^Well, don^t talk. Everything is all right — and 
I^m so happy to have you alive I could sing the Jubi- 
lee, as Aunt Euphronasia says.” 

‘^Several weeks and there was no money ! Of course, 
you went to the General, Sally — but I forgot, the 
General is away. You went to somebody, though. 
Surely you got help?” 

'^Oh, I managed, Ben. There^s nothing to worry 
about now that you are better. I feel that there’ll 
never be anything to worry about again.” 

'^But several weeks, Sally, and I lying like a log, and 
the General away! What did you do?” 

nursed you for one thing, and gave you medicine 
and chicken broth and milk and whiskey. Now, I 
shan’t talk any more until the doctor comes. Lie 
quiet and try to sleep.” 

But the jagged burn on her wrist still held my gaze, 
and catching her hand as she turned away, I pressed 
my lips to it with all my strength. 

Your hand feels so queer, Sally. It’s as red as if it 
had been scalded.” 

'^I’ve been cooking my dinner, and you see I eat a 
great deal. There, now, that’s positively my last 
word.” 

Bending over, she kissed me hurriedly, a tear fell on 
my face, and then before I could catch the fluttering 
hem of her apron, she had broken from me, and gone 
out, closing the door after her. For a minute I lay 
perfectly motionless, too weak for thought. Then 


IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS 


349 


opening my eyes with an effort, I stared straight up at 
the white ceiling, against which a green June beetle was 
knocking with a persistent, buzzing sound that seemed 
an accompaniment to the crooning lullaby of Aunt 
Euphronasia. 

Oh, we^se all gwine home ter glory, by en bye, \iV chillun, 

We^se all gwine home ter glory, by en bye.’^ 

‘^Will he break his wings on the ceiling, or will he fly 
out of the window?^’ I thought drowsily, and it ap- 
peared to me suddenly that my personal troubles — 
my illness, my anxiety for Sally, and even the poverty 
that must have pressed upon her — had receded to an 
obscure and cloudy distance, in which they became less 
important in my mind than the problem of the green 
June beetle knocking against the ceiling. ^‘Will he 
break his wings or will he fly out?^' I asked, with a 
dull interest in the event, which engrossed my thoughts 
to the exclusion of all personal matters. ought to 
think of Sally and the child, but I can^t. My head 
won^t let me. It has gone wrong, and if I begin to 
think hard thoughts Ifll go delirious again. There is 
jessamine blooming somewhere. Did she have a spray 
in her hair when she bent over me ? Why did she wear 
a gingham apron at a ball instead of pink tarlatan? 
No, that was not the problem I had to solve. Will he 
break his wings or will he fly out?^^ 

Oh, we^ll fit on de golden slippers, by enbye, liT chillun,^' 

crooned Aunt Euphronasia, rocking little Benjamin 
in the square of sunlight. 


350 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


The song soothed me and I slept for a minute. Then 
starting awake in the cold sweat of terror, I struggled 
wildly after the problem which still eluded me. 

^^Has he flown out?^^ I asked. 

^^Who, Marse Ben?^^ enquired the old negress, 
stopping her rocking and her lullaby at the same in- 
stant. 

^^The June beetle. I thought he^d break his wings 
on the ceiling.’’ 

^^Go ’way f’om hyer, honey, he ain’ gwine breck ’is 
wings. Bar’s moughty little sense inside er dem, but 
dey ain’ gwine do dat. Is yo’ wits done come 
back?” 

Not quite. I feel crazy. Aunt Euphronasia ! ” 

^^W’at you atter, Marse Ben?” 

^^How did Sally manage?” 

'^Ef’n hit’s de las’ wud I speak, she’s done man- 
aged jes exactly ez ef’n she wuz de Lawd A’moughty.” 

^^And she didn’t suffer?” 

^^Who? She? Bar ain’ none un us suffer, honey, 
we’se all been livin’ on de ve’y fat er de Ian’, we is. 
Bar’s been roas’ pig en shoat e’vy blessed day fur 
dinner.” 

She had talked me down, and I turned over again 
and lay in silence, until Sally came in with a dose of 
medicine and a cup of broth. 

^^Have I been very ill, Sally?” 

^'Very ill. It was the long mental strain, followed 
by the intense heat. At one time we feared that a 
blood vessel was broken. Now, put everything out of 
your mind, and get well.” 

She had taken off her gingham apron, and was wear- 


IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS 


351 


ing one of her last summer's dresses of flowered or- 
gandie. I remembered that I had always liked it 
because it had blue roses over it. 

^^How can I get well when I know that you have 
been starving?" 

^^But we haven't been. WeVe had everything on 
earth we wanted." 

^^Then thank God you got help. Whom did you 
go to?" 

Putting the empty glass aside, she began feeding me 
spoonfuls of broth, with her arm under my pillow. 

^^If you will be bad and insist upon knowing — I 
didn't go to anybody. You said you couldn't bear 
being helped, you know." 

^‘1 said it — oh, darling — but I didn't think of 
this ! " 

^^Well, I thought of it, anyway, and I wasn't going to 
do while you were ill and helpless what you didn't 
want me to do when you were well." 

^^You mean you told nobody all these weeks?" 

^^Well, I told one or two people, but I didn't accept 
charity from them. The General was away, you 
know, but some people from the office came over 
with offers of help — and I told them we needed 
nothing. Dr. Theophilus was too far away to treat 
you, but he has come almost every day with a pitcher 
of Mrs. Clay's chicken broth. Oh, we've prospered, 
Ben, there's no doubt of that, we've prospered!" 

'^How soon may I get up?" 

'^Not for three weeks, and it will be another three 
weeks even if you're good, before you can go back to 
the office." 


352 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


A sob rose in my throat, but I bit it back fiercely 
before it passed my lips. 

^^Oh, Sally, my darling, why did you marry me?’’ 

^^You cruel boy,” she returned cheerfully, as she 
smoothed my pillows, when you know that if I 
hadn’t married you there wouldn’t be any little Benja- 
min in the world.” 

After this the slow days dragged away, while I 
consumed chicken broth and milk punches with a 
frantic desire to get back my strength. Only to be 
on my feet again, and able to lift the burden from 
Sally’s shoulders ! Only to drive that tired look from 
her eyes, and that patient, divine smile from her lips ! 
I watched her with jealous longing while I lay there, 
helpless as a fallen tree, and I saw that she grew 
daily thinner, that the soft redness never left her 
small, childlike hands, that three fine, nervous wrinkles 
had appeared between her arched eyebrows. Some- 
thing was killing her, while I, the man who had sworn 
before God to cherish her, was but an additional bur- 
den on her fragile shoulders. And yet how I loved 
her ! Never had she seemed to me more lovely, more 
desirable, than she did as she moved about my bed 
in her gingham apron, with the anxious smile on her 
lips, and the delicate furrows deepening between her 
eyebrows. 

''How soon? How soon, Sally?” I asked almost 
hourly, kissing the scar on her wrist when she benl 
over me. 

"Be patient, dear.” 

"I am trying to be patient for your sake, but oh, 
it’s devilish hard!” 


IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS 


353 


''I know it is, Ben. Another week, and you will be 

Another week, and this killing you!^^ 

^'It isn’t killing me. If it were killing me, do you 
think I could laugh? And you hear me laugh?” 

^^Yes, I hear you laugh, and it breaks my heart 
as I lie here. If I’m ever up, Sally, if I’m ever well. 
I’ll make you go to bed and I will slave over 
you.” 

There are many things I’d enjoy more, dear. 
Going to bed isn’t my idea of happiness.” 

^^Then you shall sit on a cushion and eat nothing 
but strawberries and cream.” 

^^That sounds better. Well, there’s something I’ve 
got to see about, so I’ll leave you with Aunt Euphro' 
nasia to look after you. The doctor says you may 
have a cup of tea if you’re good. We’ll make a party 
together.” 

An hour or two later, when the afternoon sunshine 
was shut out by the green blinds, and the room was 
filled with a gentle droning sound from the humming- 
birds at the jessamine, she drew up the small wicker 
tea table to my bedside, and we made the party with 
merriment. Her eyes were tired, the three fine ner- 
vous wrinkles had deepened between her arched eye- 
brows, and the soft redness I had objected to, covered 
her hands ; yet that spirit of gaiety, which had seemed 
to me to resemble the spirit of the bird singing in the old 
grey house, still showed in her voice and her smile. 
As she brewed the tea in the little brown tea-pot 
and poured it into the delicate cups, with the faded 
pattern of moss rosebuds around the brim, I won- 
2a 


354 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


dered, half in a dream, from what inexhaustible 
source she drew this courage which faced life, not 
with endurance, but with blitheness. Were the ghosts 
of the dead Blands and Fairfaxes from whom she 
had sprung fighting over again their ancient battles in 
their descendant? 

^^This is a nice party, isn’t it?” she asked, when 
she had brought the hot buttered toast from the 
kitchen and cut it into very small slices on my plate ; 
'Hhe tea smells deliciously. I paid a dollar and a 
quarter for a pound of it this morning.” 

^^If I’m ever rich again you shall pay a million and 
a quarter, if you want to.” 

The charming archness awoke in her eyes, while she 
looked at me over the brim of the cup. 

‘^Isn’t this just as nice as being rich, Ben?” she 
asked; am really, you know, a far better cook than 
Aunt Mehitable.” 

^^All the same I’d rather live on bread and water 
than have you do it,” I answered. 

She lifted her hand, pushing the heavy hair from 
her forehead, and my gaze fell on the jagged scar on 
her wrist. Then, as she caught my glance, her arm 
dropped suddenly under the table, and she pulled her 
loose muslin sleeve into place. 

^^Does the burn hurt you, Sally?” 

‘'Not now — it is quite healed. At first it smarted 
a little.” 

“Darling, how did you do it?” 

“I’ve forgotten. On the stove, I think.” 

I fell back on the pillow, too faint, in spite of the 
tea I had taken, to follow a thought in which there 


IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS 


355 


was so sharp and so incessant a pang. Before my 
eyes the little table, with its white cloth and its 
fragile china service, decorated with moss rosebuds, 
appeared to dissolve into sojne painful dream distance, 
in which the sound of the humming-birds at the jessa- 
mine grew gradually louder. 

Six days longer I remained in bed, too weak to get 
into my clothes, or to stand on my feet, but at the 
end of that time I was permitted to struggle to the 
square of sunlight by the window, where I sat for an 
hour with the warm breeze from the garden blowing 
into my face. For the first day or two I was unable 
to rise from the deep chintz-covered chair, in which 
Aunt Euphronasia and Sally had placed me; but one 
afternoon, when the old negress had returned to the 
kitchen, and Sally had gone out on an errand, I dis- 
obeyed their orders and crawled out on the porch, 
where the scent of the jessamine seemed a part of the 
summer sunshine. The next day I ventured as far 
as the kitchen steps, and found Aunt Euphronasia 
plucking a chicken for my broth, with little Benjamin 
asleep in his carriage at her side. 

^^Aunt Euphronasia, do you know where Sally goes 
every afternoon I enquired. 

^^Hi ! Marse Ben, ainT un ’oman erbleeged ter teck 
her time off de same ez a man?^^ she demanded 
indignantly. ^^She cyarn' be everlastinUy a-settin' 
plum at yo^ elbow.^’ 

^^You know perfectly well I^m not such a brute as 
to be complaining, mammy.'^ 

^^Mebbe you ainT, honey, but hit sounds dat ar 
way ter me.^' 


356 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


I could only make sure she^d gone to walk, 
Vd be jolly glad/' 

^^Ef'n you ax me," she retorted contemptuously, 
^^she ain't de sort, suh, dat's gwineter traipse jes' fur 
de love er traipsin'." 

There was small comfort, I saw, to be had from 
her, so turning away, while she resumed her pluck- 
ing, I crawled slowly back through the bedroom into 
the hall, and along the hall to the front door, which 
stood open. Here the dust of the street rose like 
steam to my nostrils, and the stone steps and the 
brick pavement were thickly coated. A watering-cart 
turned the corner, scattering a refreshing spray, and 
behind it came a troop of thirsty dogs, licking greedily 
at the water before it sank into the dust. The foliage 
of the trees was scorched to a livid shade, and the ends 
of the leaves curled upward as if a flame had blown 
by them. Down the street, as I stood there, came 
the old familiar cry from a covered wagon: '^Water- 
million ! Hyer's yo' watermillion fresh f'om de vine !" 

Clinging to the iron railing, which burned my hand, 
I descended the steps with trembling limbs, and 
stood for a minute in the patch of shade at the bottom. 
A negro, seated on the curbing, was drinking the juice 
from a melon rind, and he looked up at me with roll- 
ing eyes, his gluttonous red lips moving in rapture. 

"Dish yer's a moughty good melon, Marster," he 
said, and returned to his feast. 

As I was about to place my foot on the bottom 
step and begin the difficult ascent, my eyes, raised 
to our sitting-room window, hung spellbound on a 
black and white sign fastened against the panes: 


IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS 


357 


'^Fine laundering. Old laces a specialty. Desserts 
made to order. 

^^Old laces a specialty/^ I repeated, as if struck by 
the phrase. Then, as my strength failed me, I sank 
on the stone step in the patch of shade, and buried 
my face in my hands. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS 

I WAS still sitting there, with my head propped in 
my hands, when my eyes, which had seen nothing 
before, saw Sally coming through the hot dust in the 
street, with George Bolingbroke, carrying a bundle 
under his arm, at her side. As she neared me a per- 
plexed and anxious look — the look I had seen always 
on the face of my mother when the day^s burden was 
heavy — succeeded the smiling brightness with which 
she had been speaking to George. 

''Why, Ben!” she exclaimed, quickening her steps, 
"what are you doing out here in this terrible heat?” 

"I got down and couldn^t get back,” I answered. 

"Well, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Here, 
George, give me the bundle and help him up.” 

"He deserves to be left here,” remarked George, 
laughing good-humouredly as he grasped my arm, 
and half led, half dragged me up the steps and into 
the house. Then, when I was placed in the deep 
chintz-covered chair by the window, Sally came in 
with a milk punch, which she held to my lips while I 
drank. 

"You^re really very foolish, Ben.” 

"I know all, Sally,” I replied, sitting up and push- 
ing the glass and her hand away, "and I^m going to 
get up and go back to work to-morrow.” 

868 


IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS 


359 


“Then drink this, please, so you will be able to go. 
I suppose you saw the sign,^^ she pursued quietly, 
when I had swallowed the punch; “George saw it, 
too, and it put him into a rage/^ 

“What has George got to do with it?^^ I demanded 
with a pang in my heart. 

“He hasn't anything, of course, but it was kind of 
him all the same to want to lend me his money. 
You see, the way of it was that when you fell ill, 
and there wasn't a penny in the house, I remem- 
bered how bitterly you'd hated the idea of taking 
help." 

I caught her hand to my lips. “I'd beg, borrow, or 
steal for you, darling." 

“You'd neglected to tell me that, so I didn't know. 
What I did was to sit down and think hard for an 
hour, and at the end of that time, when you were 
well enough to be left, I got on the car and went over 
to see several women, who, I knew, were so rich that 
they had plenty of old lace and embroidery. I told 
them exactly how it was and, of course, they all 
wanted to give me money, and Jennie Randolph even 
sat down and cried when I wouldn't take it. Then 
they agreed to let me launder all their fine lace and 
embroidered blouses, and I've made desserts and cakes 
for some of them and — and — " 

“Don't go on, Sally, I can't stand it. I'm a crack- 
brained fool and I'm going to cry." 

“Of course, the worst part was having to leave 
you, but when George found out about it, he insisted 
upon fetching and carrying my bundles." ^ 

“George!" I exclaimed sharply, and a spasm of 


360 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


pain, like the entrance of poison into an unhealed 
wound, contracted my heart. ^^Was that confounded 
package under his arm,^^ I questioned, almost angrily, 
‘^some of the stuff 

'^That was a blouse of Maggie Tyler^s. He is going 
to take it back to her on Friday. There, now, stay 
quiet, while I run and speak to him. He is wait- 
ing for me in the kitchen.^' 

She went out, as if it were the most natural thing 
in the world for her to take in washing and for George 
to deliver it, while, opening the long green shutters, I 
sat staring, beyond the humming-birds and the white 
columns, to the shimmering haze that hung over the 
old tea-roses and the dwindled box in the garden. 
Here the heat, though it was still visible to the eyes, 
was softened and made fragrant by the greenness of 
the trees and the grass and by the perfume of the 
jessamine and the old tea-roses, dropping their faintly 
coloured leaves in the sunshine. From time to time 
the sounds of the city, grown melancholy and discord- 
ant, like the sounds that one hears in fever, reached 
me across the shimmering vagueness of the garden. 

And then as I sat there, with folded hands, there 
came to me, out of some place, so remote that it 
seemed a thousand miles away from the sunny still- 
ness, and yet so near that I knew it existed only 
within my soul, a sense of failure, of helplessness, of 
humiliation. A hundred casual memories thronged 
through my mind, and all these memories, gathering 
significance from my imagination, plunged me deeper 
into the bitter despondency which had closed over 
my head. I saw the General, with his little, alert 


IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS 


361 


bloodshot eyeS; like the eyes of an intelligent bulb 
dog, with that look of stubbornness, of tenacity, per- 
sisting beneath the sly humour that gleamed in his 
face, as if he were thinking always somewhere far 
back in his brain, ^^I’ll hang on to the death, Vll 
hang on to the death/^ His figure, which, because of 
that legendary glamour I had seen surrounding it in 
childhood, still personified shining success in my eyes, 
appeared to add a certain horror to this sense of help- 
lessness, of failure, that dragged me under. Deep 
down within me, down below my love for Sally or for 
the child, something older than any emotion, older 
than any instinct except the instinct of battle, 
awakened and passed from passiveness into violence. 
“Let me but start again in the race,^^ said this some- 
thing, “let me but stand once more on my feet.^^ 
The despondency, which had been at first formless 
and vague as mere darkness, leaped suddenly into a 
tangible shape, and I felt that the oppressive weight 
of the debt on my shoulders was the weight, not of 
thought, but of metal. Until that was lifted — ■ until 
I had struggled free — I should be crippled, I told 
myself, not only in ambition, but in body. 

From the detached kitchen, at the end of the short 
brick walk, overgrown with wild violets, that led to it, 
the sound of George^s laugh fell on my ears. Rising 
to my feet with an effort, I stood listening, without 
thought, to the sound, which seemed to grow vacant 
and sad as it floated to me in the warm air over the 
sunken bricks. Then passing through the long win- 
dow, I descended the steps slowly, and stopped in the 
shadow of a pink crape myrtle that grew near the 


362 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

kitchen doorway. Again the merriment came to me, 
Sally’s laughter mingling this time with George’s. 

''No, that will never do. This is the way,” she 
said, in her sparkling voice, which reminded me al- 
ways of running water. 

"Sally!” I called, and moving nearer, I paused at 
the kitchen step, while she came quickly forward, 
with some white, filmy stuff she had just rinsed in 
the tub still in her hands. 

"Why, here’s Ben!” she exclaimed. "You bad 
boy, when I told you positively not to get up out of 
that chair!” 

A gingham apron was pinned over her waist and 
bosom, her sleeves were rolled back, and I saw the 
redness from the hot soapsuds rising from her hands 
to her elbows. 

"For God’s sake, Sally, what are you doing?” I 
demanded, and reaching out, as I swayed slightly, I 
caught the lintel of the door for support. 

"I’m washing and George is splitting kindling 
wood,” she replied cheerfully, shaking out the white, 
filmy stuff with an upward movement of her bare 
arms; "the boy who splits the wood never came — I 
think he ate too many currants yesterday — and if 
George hadn’t offered his services as man of all work, 
I dread to think what you and Aunt Euphronasia 
would have eaten for supper.” 

"It’s first-rate work for the muscles, Ben,” re- 
marked George, flinging an armful of wood on the 
brick floor, and kneeling beside the stove to kindle 
a fire in the old ashes. "I haven’t a doubt but it’s 
better for the back and arms than horseback riding. 


IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS 


363 


All the same/^ he added, poking vigorously at the 
smouldering embers, ^^I^m going to wallop that boy 
as soon as IVe got this fire started/^ 

^^You won’t have time to do that until you’ve 
delivered the day’s washing,” rejoined Sally, with 
merriment. 

^^Yes, I shall. I’ll stop on my way — that boy 
.comes first,” returned George with a grim, if humor- 
ous, determination. 

This humour, this lightness, and above all this 
gallantry, which was so much a part of the older 
civilisation to which they belonged, wrought upon my 
disordered nerves with a feeling of anger. Here, at 
last, I had run against that something else” of 
the Blands’, apart from wealth, apart from position, 
apart even from blood, of which the General had 
spoken. Miss Mitty might go in rags and do her own 
cooking, he had said, but as long as she possessed 
this something else,” that supported her, she would 
preserve to the end, in defiance of circumstances, 
her terrible importance. 

^'You know I don’t care a bit what I eat, Sally!” 
I blurted out, in a temper. 

^^Well, you may not, dear, but George and I do,” 
she rejoined, pinning the white stuff on a clothes-line 
she had stretched between the door and the window, 
^^we are both interested, you see, in getting you back 
to work. There’s the door-bell, George. You may 
wash your hands at the sink and answer it. If it’s 
the butter, bring it to me, and if it’s a caller, let him 
wait, while I turn down my sleeves.” 

Rising from his knees, George washed his hands at 


364 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


the sink, and went out along the brick walk to the 
house, while I stood in the doorway, under the shadow 
of the pink crape myrtle, and made a vow in my heart. 

^^Sally,^^ I said at last in the agony of desperation, 
^'you ought to have married George/^ 

With her arms still upraised to the clothes-line, she 
looked round at me over her shoulder. 

^^He is useful in an emergency,^^ she admitted; 
‘‘but, after all, the emergency isn^t the man, you 
know.^^ 

I was about to press the point home to conscience, 
when George, returning along the walk, announced 
with the mock solemnity of a footman in livery, 
that the callers were Dr. Theophilus and the General, 
who awaited us in the sitting-room. 

“There’s no hurry, Sally,” he added; “they started 
over to condole with you, I imagine, but they’ve 
both become so absorbed in discussing this neigh- 
bourhood as it was fifty years ago, that I honestly 
believe they’ve entirely forgotten that you live here.” 

“Well, we’ll have to remind them,” said Sally, with 
a laugh; and when she had rolled down her sleeves 
and tidied her hair before the cracked mirror on the 
wall, we went back to the house, where we found the 
two old men engaged in a violent controversy over 
the departed inhabitants of Church Hill. 

“I tell you, Theophilus, it wasn’t Robert Carring- 
ton, but his brother Bushrod that lived in that house !” 
exclaimed the General, as we entered; and he, con- 
cluded — while he shook hands with us, in the tone of 
one who forever clinches an argument, “I can take 
you this minute straight over there to his grave in 


IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS 


365 


Saint John^s Churchyard. How are you, Ben, glad 
to see you up,^’ he observed in an absent-minded 
manner. '^Have you got a palm-leaf fan around, 
Sally ? I can^t get through these sweltering after- 
noons without a fan. What do you think Theophilus 
is arguing about now? He is trying to prove to me 
that it was Robert Carrington, not Bushrod, who 
lived in that big house at the top of the hill. Why, 
I tell you I knew Bushrod Carrington as well as I did 
my own brother, sir.^^ 

He sat far back in his chair, pursing his full red 
lips angrily, like a whimpering child, and fanning him- 
self with short, excited movements of the palm-leaf 
fan. His determined, mottled face was covered 
thickly with fine drops of perspiration. 

knew Robert very intimately,^’ remarked the 
doctor, in a peaceable voice. ^^He married Matty 
Price, and I was the best man at his wedding. They 
lived unhappily, I believe, but he told me on his 
death-bed — I attended him in his last illness — that 
he would do it over again if he had to re-live his life. 
H never had a dull minute after I married her, doctor,’ 
he said, ' I lived with her for forty years and I never 
knew what was coming next till she died.’” 

Robert was a fool,” commented the General, 
brusquely, ^'a long white-livered, studious fellow that 
dragged around at his wife’s apron strings. Couldn’t 
hold a candle to his brother Bushrod. When I was a 
boy, Bushrod Carrington — he was nearer my father’s 
age than mine — was the greatest dandy and duellist 
in the state. Got all his clothes in Paris, and I can 
see him now, as plainly as if it were yesterday, when 


366 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


he used to come to church in a peachblow brocade 
waistcoat of a foreign fashion, and his hair shining 
with pomatum. Yes, he was a great duellist — that 
was the age of duels. Shot a man the first year he 
came back from France, didnH he?^^ 

sad scamp, but a good husband, remarked the 
doctor, ignoring the incident of the duel. remem- 
ber when his first child was born, he was on his knees 
praying the whole time, and then when it was over 
he went out and got as drunk as a lord. ^ Whereas 
Bushrod?' were the first words his wife spoke, and 
when some fool answered her, ^Bushrod^s drunk, 
Bessy,^ she replied, like an angel, ^Poor fellow, I 
know he needs it.^ They were a most devoted couple, 
I always heard. Who was she, George? It^s gone 
out of my mind. Was she Bessy Randolph?^’ 

^^No, Bessy Randolph was his first flame, and when 
she threw him over for Ned Peyton, he married Bessy 
Tucker. They used to say that when he couldnT get 
one Bessy, he took the other. Yes, he made a devoted 
husband, never a wild oat to sow after his marriage. 
I remember when I called on him once, when he was 
living in that big house there on top of the hill — ” 
think youTe wrong about that, George. I am 
sure it was Robert who lived there. When I attended 
him in his last illness — 

''I reckon I know where Bushrod Carrington lived, 
Theophilus. IVe been there often enough. The house 
youTe talking about is over on the other side of the 
hill, and was built by Robert.” 

“Well, I’m perfectly positive, George, that when I 
attended Robert in his last illness — ” 


IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS 


367 


^^His last illness be hanged! I tell you what, The- 
ophilus, you’re getting entirely too opinionated for a 
man of your years. If it grows on you, you’ll be hav- 
ing an attack of apoplexy next. Have you got a 
glass of iced water you can give Theophilus, Sally?” 

‘‘V\\ get it,” said young George, as Sally rose, and 
when he had gone out in response to her nod, the 
General, cooling a little, glanced with a sly wink 
from Sally to me. ^^You put me in mind of Bush- 
rod’s first fiame, Bessy Randolph, my dear,” he ob- 
served; ^^she was a great belle and beauty and half 
the men in Virginia proposed to her, they used to say, 
before she married Ned Peyton. ^No, I can’t accept 
you for a husband,’ the minx would reply, ^but I 
think you will do very well indeed as a hanger-on.’ 
It looks as if you’d got George for a hanger-on, eh?” 

^^At present she’s got him in place of a boy-of-all- 
jobs,” I observed lightly, though a fierce misery worked 
in my mind. 

^^Well, she can’t do better,” said the doctor, as they 
prepared to leave. '^Let me hear how you are, Ben. 
Don’t eat too much till you get back your strength, 
and be sure to take your egg-nog three times a day. 
Come along, George, and we’ll look up Robert’s and 
Bushrod’s graves in the churchyard. You’d better 
bring the palm-leaf fan, you’ll probably need it.” 

They descended the curving steps leisurely, the 
General clinging to the railing on one side, and sup- 
ported by George on the other. Then, at last, after 
many protestations of sympathy, and not a few anec- 
dotes forgotten until the instant of departure revived 
the memory, the old grey horse, deciding suddenly 


368 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


that it was time for oats and the cool stable, started 
of his own accord up the street toward the church- 
yard. As the buggy passed out of sight, with the 
palm-leaf fan waving frantically when it turned the 
corner, George came up the steps again, and going 
indoors, brought out the little bundle of lace that he 
was to deliver to its owner on his way home. 

“Keep up your pluck, Ben,’^ he said cheerfully; 
and turning away, he looked at Sally with a long, 
thoughtful gaze as he held out his hand. 

“Now, I^m going to wallop that boy,^^ he remarked, 
after a minute. “Is there anything else? 1^11 be 
over to-morrow as soon as I can get off from the 
office.^^ 

“Nothing else,” she replied; then, as he was moving 
away, she leaned forward, with that bloom and soft- 
ness in her look which always came to her in moments 
when she was deeply stirred. “George!” she called, 
in a low voice, “George 1” 

He stopped and came back, meeting her vivid face 
with eyes that grew suddenly dark and gentle. 

“It’s just to say that I don’t know what in the 
world I should have done without you,” she said. 

Again he turned from her, and this time he went 
quickly, without looking back, along the dusty street 
in the direction of the car line beyond the corner. 

“You’ve been up too long, Ben, and you’re as 
white as a sheet,” said Sally, putting her hand on my 
arm. “Come, now, and lie down again while Aunt 
Euphronasia is cooking supper. I must iron Maggie 
Tyler’s blouse as soon as it is dry.” 

The mention of Maggie Tyler’s blouse was all I 


IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS 369 

needed to precipitate me into the abyss above which 
I had stood. Too miserable to offer useless comment 
upon so obvious a tragedy, I followed her in silence 
back to the bedroom, - where she placed me on the 
bed and flung a soft, thin coverlet over my prostrate 
body. She was still standing beside me, when Aunt 
Euphronasia hobbled excitedly into the room, and 
looking across the threshold, I discerned a tall, slender 
figure, shrouded heavily in black, hovering in the dim 
hall beyond. 

^^Hi! hi! honey, hyer^s Miss Mitty done come ter 
see you exclaimed Aunt Euphronasia, in a burst of 
ecstasy. 

Sally turned with a cry, and the next instant she 
was clasped in Miss Mitty^s arms, with her head hidden 
in the rustling crape on the old lady^s shoulder. 

just heard that you were in trouble, and that 
your husband was ill,’^ said Miss Mitty, when she had 
seated herself in the chair by the window; ^‘1 came 
over at once, though I hadn’t left the house for a 
year except to go out to Hollywood.” 

^Ht was so good of you. Aunt Mitty, so good of 
you,” replied Sally, caressing her hand. 

^Hf I’d only known sooner, I should have come. 
You are looking very badly, my child.” 

^^Ben will be well quickly now, and then I can 
rest.” 

At this she turned toward me, and enquired in a 
gentle, reserved way about my illness, the nature of 
the fever, and the pain from which I had suffered. 

‘^1 hope you had the proper food, Ben,” she said, 
calling me for the first time by my name; am sorry 
2b 


370 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


that I could not supply you with my chicken jelly. 
Dr. Theophilus tells me he considers it superior to any 
he has ever tried — even to Mrs. Clay^s.^^ 

Comfort Sally, Miss Mitty, and it will do me more 
good than chicken jelly. 

For a minute she sat looking at me kindly in silence. 
Then, as little Benjamin was brought, she took him 
upon her lap, and remarked that he was a beautiful 
baby, and that she already discerned in him the look 
of her Uncle Theodoric Fairfax. 

‘^1 should like you to come to my house as soon as 
you are able to move,^^ she said presently, as she rose 
to go, and paused for a minute to bend over and kiss 
little Benjamin. “You will be more comfortable 
there, though the air is, perhaps, fresher over here.^^ 

I thanked her with tears in my eyes, and a resolve 
in my mind that at least Sally and the baby should 
accept the offer. 

“There is a basket of old port in the sitting-room; 
I thought it might help to strengthen you,’^ were her 
last words as she passed out, with Sally clinging to 
her arm, and the crape veil she still wore for Miss 
Matoaca rustling as she moved. 

“Po’ Miss Mitty has done breck so I ^ouldnT hev 
knowed her fom de daid,^^ observed Aunt Euphro- 
nasia, when the front door had closed and the sound 
of rapidly rolling wheels had passed down the street. 

All night Sally and I talked of her, she resisting and 
I entreating that she should go to her old home for 
the rest of the summer. 

“How can I leave you, Ben? How can you possi- 
bly do without me?^^ 


IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS 


371 


Don’t bother about me. I’ll manage to scrape 
along, somehow. There are two things that are kill- 
ing me, Sally — the fact of owing money that I can’t 
pay, and the thought of your toiling like a slave over 
my comfort.” 

^^I’ll go, then, if you will come with me.” 

^^You know I can’t come with you. She only asked 
me, you must realise, out of pity.” 

^^Well, I shan’t go a step without you,” she said 
decisively at last, ^^for I don’t see how on earth you 
would live through the summer if I did.” 

don’t see either,” I admitted honestly, looking 
at her, as she stood in the frame of the long window, 
the ruffles of her muslin dressing-gown blowing gently 
in the breeze which had sprung up in the garden. 
Beyond her there was a pale dimness, and the fresh, 
moist smell of the dew on the grass. 

What she had said was the truth. How could I 
have lived through the summer if she had left me? 
Since the night after my failure, when we had come, 
for the first time, face to face with each other, I had 
leaned on her with all the weight of my crippled 
strength; and this weight, instead of crushing her to 
the earth, appeared to add vigour and buoyancy to 
her slender figure. Long afterwards, when my know- 
ledge of her had come at last, not through love, but 
through bitterness, I wondered why I had not under- 
stood on that night, while I lay there watching her 
pale outline framed by the window. Love, not meat 
and drink, was her nourishment, and without love, 
though I were to surround her with all the fruits of 
the earth, she would still be famished. That she was 


372 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


strong, I had already learned. What I was still to 
discover was that this strength lay less in character 
than in emotion. Her very endurance — her power 
of sustained sympathy, of sacrifice — had its birth in 
some strangely idealised quality of passion — as 
though even suffering or duty was enkindled by 
this warm, clear flame that burned always within 
her. 

As the light broke, we were awakened, after a few 
hours ^ restless sleep, by a sharp ring at the bell ; and 
when she had slipped into her wrapper and answered 
it, she came back very slowly, holding an open note . 
in her hands. 

^^Oh, poor Aunt Mitty, poor Aunt Mitty. She died 
all alone in her house last night, and the servants 
found her this morning.^' 

^^Well, the last thing she did was a kindness,^' I 
said gently. 

glad of that, glad she came to see me, but, 
Ben, I can^t help believing that it killed her. She 
had Aunt Matoaca^s heart trouble, and the strain was 
too much.’^ Then, as I held out my arms, she clung 
to me, weeping. Never leave me alone, Ben — what- 
ever happens, never, never leave me alone 

A few days later, when Miss Mitty’s will was opened, 
it was found that she had left to Sally her little sav- 
ings of the last few years, which amounted to ten 
thousand dollars. The house, with her income, passed 
from her to the hospital endowed by Edmond Bland 
in a fit of rage with his youngest daughter; and the 
old lady’s canary and the cheque, which fluttered some 


IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS 


373 


weeks later from the lawyer^s letter, were the only 
possessions of hers that reached her niece. 

^^She left the miniature of me painted when I was 
a child to George,’^ said Sally, with the cheque in her 
hand; George was very good to her at the end. Did 
you ever notice my miniature, framed in pearls, that 
she wore sometimes, in place of grandmama^s, at her 
throat 

I had not noticed it, and the fact that \ had never 
seen it, and was perfectly unaware whether or not it 
resembled Sally, seemed in some curious way to in- 
crease, rather than to diminish, the jealous pain at 
my heart. Why should George have been given this 
trifle, which was associated with Sally, and which I 
had never seen? 

She leaned forward and the cheque fluttered into 
my plate. 

^^Take the money, Ben, and do what you think 
best with it,’^ she added. 

^'It belongs to you. Wouldn^t you rather keep it 
in bank as a nest-egg?’^ 

^^No, take it. I had everything of yours as long as 
you had anything.^' 

^^Then it goes into bank for you all the same,^^ I 
replied, as I slipped the paper into my pocket. 

An hour later, as I passed in the car down the long 
hill, I told myself that I would place the money to 
Sally^s account, in order that she might draw on it 
until I had made good the strain of my illness. My 
first intention had been to go into the bank on my 
way to the office ; but glancing at my watch as I left 
the car, I found that it was already after nine o^ clock, 


374 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


and so returning the cheque to my pocket, I crossed 
the street, where I found the devil of temptation 
awaiting me in the person of Sam Brackett. 

say, Ben, if you had a little cash, here’s an op- 
portunity to make your fortune rise,” he remarked; 
'^I’ve just given George a tip and he’s going 
in.” 

^^You’d better keep out of it, Ben,” said George, 
wheeling round suddenly after he had nodded and 
turned away. ^^It’s copper, and you know if there’s 
a thing on earth that can begin to monkey when you 
don’t expect it to, it’s the copper trade.” 

Bonanza copper mining stock is selling at zero 
again,” commented Sam imperturbably, ^^and if it 
doesn’t go up like a shot, then I’m a deader.” 

Whether his future was to be that of a deader or 
not concerned me little; but while I stood there on 
the crowded pavement, with my eyes on the sky, 
I had a sudden sensation, as if the burden of debt ^ 
which was the burden, not of thought, but of metal 
— had been removed from my shoulders. My first for- 
tune had been made in copper, — why not repeat it ? 
That one minute’s sense of release, of freedom, had 
gone like wine to my head. I saw stretching away 
from me the dull years I must spend in chains, but I 
saw, also, in the blessed vision which Sam Brackett 
had called up, the single means of escape. 

“What does the General think ’of it, George?’' I 
enquired. 

“He’s putting in money, I believe, moderately as 
usual,” replied George, with a worried look on his 
face; “but I tell you frankly, Ben, whether it’s a good 


IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS 


375 


thing or not, if that^s Miss Mitty^s legacy, you oughtn^t 
to speculate with it. Sally might need it.’’ 

Sally needs a thousand times more,” I returned, 
not without irritation, ^^and I shall get it for her in the 
way I can.” Then I held out my hand. ^^You’re a 
first-rate chap, George,” I added, ^^but just think what 
it would mean to Sally if I could get out of debt at a 
jump.” 

dare say,” he responded, ^^but I’m not sure that 
putting your last ten thousand dollars in the Bonanza 
copper mining stock is a rational way of doing it.” 

^^Such things aren’t done in a rational way. The 
secret of successful speculating is to be willing to dare 
everything for something. Sam’s got faith in the 
Bonanza, and he knows a hundred times as much about 
it as you or I.” 

“If it doesn’t rise,” said Sam emphatically, “then 
I’m a deader.” 

I still saw the dull years stretching ahead, and I 
still felt the tangible weight on my shoulders of the two 
hundred thousand dollars I owed. The old prostrate 
instinct of the speculator, which is but the gambler’s 
instinct in better clothes, lifted its head within me. 

“Well, it won’t do any harm to go into Townley’s 
and find out about it,” I said, moving in the direction 
of the broker’s office next door. 


CHAPTER XXX 


IN WHICH SALLY PLANS 

My first sensation after putting Sally^s ten thousand 
dollars into copper mining stock was one of immense 
relief, almost of exhilaration, as if I already heard in my 
fancy the clanking of the loosened chains as they dropped 
from me. I recalled, one by one, the incidents of my 
earliest risky and yet fortunate venture, when, 
following the GeneraFs advice, I had gone in boldly, 
and after a short period of breathless fluctuation, had 
'^realised,^^ as he had said, nice little fortune for 
a first hatching.^^ And because this seemed to me the 
single means of recovery, because I had so often before 
in my life been guided by some infallible instinct to 
seize the last chance that in the outcome had proved to 
be the right way, I felt now that reliance upon fortune, 
that assurance of the thing hoped for, which was as 
much a portion of experience as it was a quality of 
temperament. 

At home, when I reached there late in the afternoon, I 
found Sally just stepping out of the Generahs buggy, 
while the great man, sacrificing gallantry to the claims 
of gout, sat, under his old-fashioned linen dust robe, 
holding the slackened reins over the grey horse. 

'' WeVe got a beautiful plan, Ben, the General and 
remarked Sally, when he had driven away, and we were 
376 


IN WHICH SALLY PLANS 


377 


entering the house ; ^^but it’s a secret, and you’re not to 
know of it until it is ready to be divulged.” 

^^Is George aware of it?” I asked irrelevantly, moved 
by I know not what spirit of averseness. 

^^Yes, we’ve let George into it, but I’m not perfectly 
uure that he approves. The idea came to the General 
and to me almost at the same instant, and that is a very 
good thing to be said of any idea. It proves it to be 
an elastic one anyway.” 

She talked merrily through supper, breaking inte 
smiles from time to time, caressing evidently this idea- 
which was so elastic, and which she declined provokingly 
to divulge. But I, also, had my secret, for my mind, 
responding to the springs of hope, toyed ceaselessly 
with the possibility of escape. For several weeks this 
dream of ultimate freedom possessed my thoughts, 
and then, at last, when the copper trade, instead of 
reviving, seemed paralysed for a season, I awakened 
with a shock, to the knowledge that I had lost Sally’s 
little fortune as irretrievably as I appeared to have 
lost my larger one. Clearly my financial genius was 
asleep, or off assisting at a sacrifice; and it did little 
good, as I toiled home in the afternoon, to curse myself 
frantically for a perverse and a thankless brute. It 
was too late now ; I had played the fool once too often 
and the money was gone. Was my brain weakened 
permanently by the fever, I wondered? Had the 
muscles of my will dwindled away and grown flabby, 
like the muscles of my body? 

As I left the car, a group of school children ran along 
the pavement in front of me, and then scattering like 
pigeons, fluttered after a big, old-fashioned barouche 


378 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


that had turned the corner. When it came nearer, I 
saw that the barouche was the Generals, a piece of 
family property which had descended to him from his 
father, and that the great man now sat on the deep, 
broadcloth-covered cushions, his legs very far apart, 
his hands clasped on his gold-headed walking-stick, and 
his square, mottled face staring straight ahead, with that 
look of tenacity, as if he were saying somewhere back 
in his brain, ^^1^11 hang on to the death. 

Before our door, where Sally was waiting in her hat 
and veil, the barouche drew up with a flourish ; Balaam, 
the old negro coachman, settled himself for a doze on the 
box, and the pair of fat roans began switching their 
long tails in the faces of the swarming school chil- 
dren. 

^^So you^re just in time, Ben,^^ remarked the General, 
while he hobbled out in order to help Sally in. 
thought you^d have been at home at least an hour ago. 
Meant to come earlier, but something went wrong at the 
stables. Something always is wrong at the stables. I 
wouldn’t be in George’s shoes for a mint of money. 
Never a day passes that he isn’t fussing about his horses, 
or his traps, or his groom. Well, you’re ready, Sally? 
I like a woman who is punctual, and I never in my life 
knew but one who was. That was your Aunt Matoaca. 
You get it from her, I suppose. Ah, she never kept you 
waiting a minute, — no fussing about gloves or fans or 
handkerchiefs. Always just ready when you came for 
her, and looking like an angel. Never saw her in a 
rose-lined bonnet, did you, my dear?” 

^^Only in black. General,” replied Sally, as she took 
her seat in the barouche. ^^Come, get in, Ben, we’re 


IN WHICH SALLY PLANS 


379 


going to reveal our secret at last, and we want you to 
be with us/^ 

The General got in again with difficulty, groaning a 
little; I entered and sat down opposite to them, with 
my back to the horses; and the old negro coachman, 
disappointed at the length of the wait, pulled the reins 
gently and gave a slight, admonishing flick at the 
broad flanks of the roans. Behind the barouche the 
• school children still fluttered, and turning in his seat, the 
General looked back angrily and threatened them with 
a wave of his big ebony walking-stick. 

^^What is it, Sally I asked, striving to force a 
curiosity my wretchedness prevented me from feeling; 
^^canT you unfold the mystery?^’ 

^^Be patient, be patient,’’ she responded gaily, 
leaning back beside the General, as we rolled down the 
wide street under the wilted, dusty leaves of the trees. 
'^Haven’t you noticed for weeks that the General and 
I have had a secret?” 

'^Yes, I’ve noticed it, but I thought you’d tell me 
when the time came.” 

^^We shan’t tell him, shall we, General? — We’ll 
show him.” 

Ah, there’s time enough, time enough,” returned the 
General, absent-mindedly, for he had not been listening. 
His resolute, bulldog face, flushed now by the heat and 
covered with a fine perspiration, had taken on an 
absorbed and pondering look. never come along 
here that it doesn’t put me back at least fifty years,” 
he observed, leaning over his side of the barouche, and 
peering down one of the side streets that led past the 
churchyard. Sorry they’ve been meddling with that 


380 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


old church. Better have left it as it used to be in my 
boyhood. Do you see that little house there, set back 
in the yard, with the chimney crumbling to pieces? 
That was the first school I ever went to, and it was 
taught by old Miss Deborah Timberlake, the sister of 
William Timberlake who shot all those stags’ heads 
you’ve got hanging in your hall. Nobody ever knew 
why she taught school. Plenty to eat and drink. 
William gave her everything that she wanted, but she 
got cranky when she’d turned sixty, and insisted on 
being independent. Independent, she said ! Pish ! 
Tush. Never learned a word from her. Taught us 
English history, then Virginia history. As for the 
rest of America, she used to say it didn’t have a history, 
merely a past. Mentioned the Boston tea party once 
by mistake, and had to explain that that was an inci- 
dent, not history. Well, well, it seems a thousand years 
ago. Never could understand, to save my life, why she 
took to teaching. Had all she wanted. Her brother 
William was an odd man. A fine toast. I never heard 
a better story — I remember them even as a boy — 
and often enough I’ve got them off since his death. 
Used to ill-treat his slaves, though-, they said, and had 
queer ideas about women and property. Married his 
wife who didn’t have a red penny, and on his wed- 
ding journey, when she called him by his name, replied 
to her, 'Madam, my dependants are accustomed to 
address me as Mr. Timberlake.’ Ha, ha ! a queer bird 
was William.” 

The street was the one down which I had passed so 
many years ago, wedged tightly between my mother 
and Mrs. Kidd, to the funeral of old Mr. Cudlip ; and 


IN WHICH SALLY PLANS 


381 


it seemed to me that it held unchanged, as if it 
had stagnated there between the quaint old houses, 
that same atmosphere of sadness, of desolation. The 
houses, still half closed, appeared all but deserted ; the 
aged negresses, staring after us under their hollowed 
palms, looked as if they had stood there forever. Prog- 
ress, which had invaded the neighbouring quarters, had 
left this one, as yet, undisturbed. 

Opposite to me, Sally smiled with beaming eyes when 
she met my gaze. I knew that she was hugging her 
secret, and I knew, in some intuitive way, that she 
expected this secret to afford me pleasure. The Gen- 
eral, peering from right to left in search of associations, 
kept moving his lips as if he were thinking aloud. On 
his face, in the deep creases where the perspiration had 
gathered, the dust, rising from the street, had settled 
in greyish streaks. From time to time, in an absent- 
minded manner, he got out his big white silk handker- 
chief and wiped it away. 

There now ! Vve got it ! Hold on a minute, 
Balaam. That^s the house that Robert Carrington 
built clean over here on the other side of the hill. 
There it is now — the one with that pink crape myrtle 
in the yard, and the four columns, you can see it with 
your own eyes. Theophilus tried to prove to me that 
Robert lived in Bushrod^s house, and that he’d 
attended him there in his last illness. Last illness, 
indeed ! The truth is that Theophilus isn’t what he 
once was. Memory’s going and he doesn’t like to own 
it. No use arguing with him — you can’t argue with a 
man whose memory is going — but there’s Robert 
Carrington’s house. You’ve seen it with your own eyes. 
Drive on, Balaam.” 


3»2 


THE KOMAWCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


Balaam drove on, and the carriage, leaving the city 
and the thinning suburbs, passed rapidly into one of the 
country roads, white with dust, which stretched between 
ragged borders of yarrow and pokeberry that were white 
with dust also. The fields on either side, sometimes 
planted in corn, oftener grown wild in broomsedge or 
life-everlasting, shimmered under the heat, which was 
alive with the whirring of innumerable insects. Here 
and there a negro cabin, built close to the road, stood 
bare in a piece of burned-out clearing, or showed 
behind the thick fanlike leaves of gourd vines, with the 
heads of sunflowers nodding heavily beside the open 
doorways. Occasionally, in the first few miles, a 
covered wagon crawled by us on its way to town, the 
driver leaning far over the dusty horses, and singing out 
Howdy !’Mn a friendly voice, — to which the General 
invariably responded Howdy, in the same tone, as he 
touched the wide brim of his straw hat with his ebony 
stick. 

^^HasnT got on the scent, has he?’' he enquired 
presently of Sally, with a sly wink in my direction. 
^^Are you sure George hasn’t let it out? Never could 
keep a secret, could George. He’s, one of those close- 
mouthed fellows that shuts a thing up so tight it ex- 
plodes before he’s aware of it. He can’t hide anything 
from me. I read him just as if he were a book. It’s 
as well, I reckon, as I told him the other day, that he 
isn’t still in love with your wife, Ben, or it would be 
written all over him as plain as big print.” 

My eyes caught Sally’s, and she blushed a clear, 
warm pink to the heavy waves of her hair. 

^^Not that he’d ever be such a rascal as to keep up a 


IN WHICH SALLY PLANS 


383 


fancy for a married woman/^ pursued the great man, 
unseeing and unthinking. ''The Bolingbrokes may 
have been wild, but they Ve always been men of honour, 
and even if theyVe played fast and loose now and then 
with a woman, they have never tried to pilfer any- 
thing that belonged to another man.^’ 

"I think weTe coming to it,^^ said Sally suddenly, 
trying to turn the conversation to lighter matters. 

"Ah, so we are, so we are. That^s a good view of the 
river, and there^s the railroad station at the foot of the 
hill not a half mile away. It^s the very thing you need, 
Ben, it will be the making of you and of the youngster, 
as I said to Sally when the idea first entered my 
mind.’' 

The barouche made a quick turn into a straight lane 
bordered by old locust trees, and stopped a few minutes 
later before a square red brick country house, with four 
white columns supporting the portico, and a bower 
of ancient ivy growing over the roof. 

"Here we are at last ! Oh, Ben, don’t you like it?” 
said Sally, springing to the ground before the horses had 
stopped. 

"Like it? Of course he likes it,” returned the 
General, impatiently, as he got out and followed her 
between the rows of calycanthus bushes that edged the 
walk. "What business has he got not to like it after 
all the trouble we’ve been to on his account? It’s th^ 
very thing for his health — that’s what I said to you, 
my dear, as soon as I heard of Miss Mitty’s legacy, 
'The old Bending place is for sale and will go cheap,’ 
I said. 'Why not move out into the country and give 
Ben and the youngster a chance to breathe fresh air? 


384 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


He^s beginning to look seedy and fresh air will set him 

^^But I really donH believe he likes it/’ rejoined 
Sally, a little wistfully, turning, as she reached the col- 
umns of the portico, and looking doubtfully into my 
face. 

^^You know I like anything that you like, Sally,” I 
answered in a voice which, I knew, sounded flat and 
unenthusiastic, in spite of my effort; ^4t’s a flne house 
and there’s a good view of the river, I dare say, at the 
back.” 

^‘1 thought it would please you, Ben. It seemed to 
the General and me the very best thing we could do 
with Aunt Mitty’s money.” 

There was a hurt look in her eyes ; her mouth trembled 
as she spoke, and all the charming mystery had fled 
from her manner. If we had been alone I should have 
opened my arms to her, and have made my confession 
with her head on my shoulder ; but the square, excited 
figure of the General, who kept marching aimlessly up 
and down between the calycanthus bushes, put the 
restraint of a terrible embarrassment upon my words. 
Tell her I must, and yet how could I tell her while the 
little cynical bloodshot eyes of the great man were upon 
us? 

Let’s go to the back. We can see the river from 
the terrace,” she said, and there was a touching disap- 
pointment in her smile and her voice. 

^^Yes, we’ll go to the back,” responded the General, 
with eagerness. Follow this path, Ben, the one that 
leads round the west wing,” and he added when we had 
turned the corner of the house, and stopped on the trim 


IN WHICH SALLY PLANS 


385 


terrace, covered with beds of sweet-william and fox- 
glove, ^^What do you think of that for a view now? If 
those big poplars were out of the way, you could see 
clear down to Merrivale, the old Smith place, where I 
used to go as a boy/^ 

Meeting the disappointment in Sally^s look, I tried 
to rise valiantly to the occasion; but it was evident, 
even while I uttered my empty phrases, that to all of 
us, except the General, the mystery had been blighted 
by some deadly chill in the very instant of its unfold- 
ing. The great man alone, with that power of ignor- 
ing the obvious, which had contributed so largely 
to his success, continued his running comments in his 
cheerful, dogmatic tone. Some twenty minutes later, 
when, after an indifferent inspection of the house on our 
part, and a vigilant one on the GeneraFs, we rolled back 
again in the barouche over the dusty road, he was still 
perfectly unaware that the surprise he had sprung had 
not been attended by a triumph of pleasure for us all. 

'^YouTe foolish, my dear, about those big poplars,’^ 
he said a dozen times, while he sat staring, with an un- 
seeing gaze, at the thin red line of the sunset over the 
corn-fields. ^^They ought to come down, and then you 
could see clean to the old Smith place, where I used to 
go as a boy. I learned to shoot there. Fell in love, too, 
when I wasn’t more than twelve with Miss Lucy Smith, 
my first flame — pretty as a pink, all the boys were in 
love with her.” 

Sally’s hand stole into mine under the muslin ruffles of 
her dress, and her eyes, when she looked at me, held a 
soft, deprecating expression, as if she were trying to 
understand, and could not, how she had hurt me. When 
2c 


386 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


at last we came to our own door and the General, 
after insisting again that the only improvement needed 
to the place was that the big poplars should come down, 
had drivenserenely away in his big barouche, we ascended 
the steps in silence, and entered the sitting-room, which 
was filled with the pale gloom of twilight. While I 
lighted the lamp, she waited in the centre of the room, 
with the soft, deprecating expression still in her eyes. 

“What is it, Ben?^^ she asked, facing the lamp as I 
turned; “did you mind my keeping the idea a secret? 
Why, I thought that would please you.’^ 

“It isn^t that, Sally, it isn’t that, — but — I’ve 
lost the money.” 

“Lost it, Ben?” 

“I saw what I thought was a good chance to specu- 
late — and I speculated.” 

“You speculated with the ten thousand dollars?” 

“Yes.” 

“And lost it?” 

“Yes.” 

For a moment her face was inscrutable. 

“When did it happen?” 

“I found out to-day that it was -gone beyond hope 
of recovery.” 

“Then you haven’t known it all along and kept it 
from me ?” 

“I was going to tell you as soon as I came up this 
afternoon, but the General was here.” 

“I am glad of that,” she said quietly. “If you had 
kept anything from me and worried over it, it would 
have broken my heart.” 

“Sally, I have been a fool.” 


IN WHICH SALLY PLANS 


387 


'^Yes, dear/^ 

'^Heaven knows, I don’t mean to add to your 
troubles, but when I think of all that I’ve brought you 
to, I feel as if I should go out of my mind.” 

She put her hand on my arm, smiling up at me with 
her old sparkling gaiety. ^^Come and sit down by 
me, and we’ll have a cup of tea, and you’ll feel better. 
But first I must tell you that I am a terribly extrav- 
agant person, Ben, for I paid another dollar and a 
quarter for a pound of tea this morning.” 

Thank heaven for it,” I returned devoutly. 

^^And there’s something else. I feel my sins grow- 
ing on me. Do you remember last winter, when you 
were worrying so over your losses, and didn’t know 
where you could turn for cash — do you remember 
that I paid five thousand dollars — five thousand dol- 
lars, you understand, and that’s half of ten — for a 
lace gown?” 

^^Did you, darling?” 

'^Do you remember what you said?” 

'^^Thank you for the privilege of paying for it,’ I 
hope.” 

^^You paid the bill, and never told me I oughtn’t to 
have bought it. What you said was, ^I’m awfully 
glad you’ve got such a becoming dress, because busi- 
ness is going badly, and we may have to pull up for 
a while.’ Then I found out from George that you’d 
sold your motor car, and everything else you could 
lay hands on to meet the daily expenses. Now, Ben, 
tell me honestly which is the worse sinner, you or I?” 

''But that was my fault, too — everything was my 
fault.” 


388 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^The idea of your committing the extravagance of 
a lace gown! Why, you couldn^t even tell the differ- 
ence between imitation and real. And that pound of 
tea ! You know you^d never have gone out and 
spent your last dollar and a quarter on a pound of 
tea.^^ 

^^If you^d wanted it, Sally. 

^^Well, you speculated with that ten thousand dol- 
lars from exactly the same motive — because you 
thought I wanted so much that I didn^t have. But I 
bought that gown entirely to gratify my vanity — so 
you see, after all, I^m a great deal the worse sinner of 
us two. There, now, I must see about the baby. He 
was very fretful all the morning, and the doctor says 
it is the heat. I^m sure, Ben, that he ought to get out 
of the city. How can we manage it?^^ 

^H’ll manage it, dear. The General will be only too 
glad to lend the money. 1^11 go straight over and ex- 
plain matters to him.^^ 

A cry came from little Benjamin in the nursery, and 
kissing me hurriedly with, Remember, I’m a sinner, 
Ben,” she left the room, while I took up my hat again, 
and went up-town to make my confession to the Gen- 
eral and request his assistance. 

^'Lend it to you, you scamp !” he exclaimed, when 1 
found him on his front porch with a palm-leaf fan in 
his hand. ^^Of course. I’ll lend it to you; but why in 
the deuce were you so blamed cheerful this afternoon 
about that house in the country ? I could have sworn 
you were in a gale over the idea. Here, Hatty, bring 
me a pen. I can see perfectly well by this damned 
electric light they’ve stuck at my door. Well, I’m 


IN WHICH SALLY PLANS 


389 


sorry enough for you, Ben. It's hard on your wife, 
and she's the kind of woman that makes a man believe 
in the angels. Her Aunt Matoaca all over — you 
know, George, I always told you that Sally Mickle- 
borough was the image of her Aunt Matoaca." 

‘^1 know you did," replied George, twirling the 
end of his mustache. He looked tired and anxious, 
and it seemed to me suddenly that the whole city, and 
every face in it, under the white blaze of the electric 
light, had this same tired and anxious expression. 

I took the cheque, put it into my pocket with a word 
of thanks, and turned to the steps. 

can't stay. General, while the baby is ill. Sally 
may need me." 

^^Well, you're right, Ben, stick to her when she needs 
you, and you'll find she'll stick to you. I've always 
said that gratitude counted stronger in the sex than 
love." 

As I went down the steps George joined me, and 
walked with me to the car line. The look on his face 
brought to my memory the night I had seen him star- 
ing moodily across the roses and lilies at Sally's bare 
shoulders, and the same fierce instinct of possession 
gnawed in my heart. 

'^Look here, Ben, I can't bear to think of the way 
things are going with Sally," he said. 

^‘1 can't bear to think of it myself," I returned 
gloomily. 

^Hf there's ever anything I can do — remember I am 
at your service." 

'H'll remember it, George," I answered, angry with 
myself because my gratitude was shot through with a 


390 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


less noble feeling. ^^1^11 remember it, and I thank you, 
too.’' 

'^Then it’s a bargain. You won’t let her suffer 
because you’re too proud to take help ? ” 

^^No, I won’t let her suffer if I have to beg to pre- 
vent it. Haven’t I just done so ? ” 

He held out his hand, I wrung it in mine, and then, 
as I got on the car, he turned away and walked at his 
lazy step back along the block. Looking from the car 
window, as it passed on, I saw his slim, straight figure 
moving, with bent head, as if plunged in thought, 
under the electric light at the corner. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


THE DEEPEST SHADOW 

As I entered the house, the sound of Aunt Euphro- 
nasia’s crooning fell on my ears, and going into the 
nursery, I found Sally sitting by the window; with the 
child on her knees, while the old negress waved a palm- 
leaf fan back and forth with a slow, rhythmic move- 
ment. A night-lamp burned, with lowered wick, on 
the bureau, and as Sally looked up at me, I saw that 
her face had grown wan and haggard since I had left 
her. 

^^The baby was taken very ill just after you went,^' 
she said; ^^we feared a convulsion, and I sent one of 
the neighbours^ children for the doctor. It may be 
only the heat, he says, but he is coming again at mid- 
night. 

had hoped you would be able to get off in the 
morning. 

'^No, not now. The baby is too ill. In a few days, 
perhaps, if he is better.^^ 

Her voice broke, and kneeling beside her, I clasped 
them both in my arms, while the anguish in my heart 
rose suddenly like a wild beast to my throat. 

^'What can I do, Sally I asked passionately. 
‘^What can I do?^’ 

'^Nothing, dear, nothing. Only be quiet. 

Only be quiet ! Rising to my feet I walked softly 
391 


392 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


to the end of the room, and then turning came back 
again to the spot where I had knelt. At the moment 
I longed to knock down something, to strangle some- 
thing, to pull to earth and destroy as a beast destroys 
in a rage. Through the open window I could see a 
full moon shining over a magnolia, and the very soft- 
ness and quiet of the moonlight appeared, in some 
strange way, to increase my suffering. A faint breeze, 
scented with jessamine, blew every now and then from 
the garden, rising, dying away, and rising again, until 
it waved the loosened tendrils of hair on Sally^s neck. 
The odour, also, like the moonlight, mingled, while I 
stood there, and was made one with the anguish in my 
thoughts. Again I walked the length of the room, 
and again I turned and came back to the window be- 
side which Sally sat. My foot as I moved stumbled 
upon something soft and round, and stooping to pick 
it up, I saw that it was a rubber doll, dropped by little 
Benjamin when he had grown too ill or too tired to 
play. I laid it in Sally^s work-basket on the table, and 
then throwing off my coat, flung myself into a chair in 
one corner. A minute afterwards I rose, and walking 
gently through the long window, looked on the garden, 
which lay dim and fragrant under the moonlight. On 
the porch, twining in and out of the columns, the star 
jessamine, riotous with its second blooming, swayed 
back and forth like a curtain ; and as I bent over, the 
small, white, deadly sweet blossoms caressed my face. 
A white moth whirred by me into the room, and when 
I entered again, I saw that it was flying swiftly in 
circles, above the flame of the night-lamp on the bureau. 

Sally was sitting just as I had left her, her arm under 


THE DEEPEST SHADOW 


393 


the child^s head, her face bent forward as if listening 
to a distant, almost inaudible sound. She appeared 
so still, so patient, that I wondered in amazement if 
she had sat there for hours, unchanged, unheeding, un- 
approachable ? There was in her attitude, in her pen- 
sive quiet, something so detached and tragic, that I 
felt suddenly that I had never really seen her until 
that minute ; and instead of going to her as I had in- 
tended, I drew away, and stood on the threshold watch- 
ing her almost as a stranger might have done. Once 
the child stirred and cried, lifting his little hands and 
letting them fall again with the same short cry of dis- 
tress. The flesh of my heart seemed to tear suddenly 
asunder, and I sprang forward. Sally looked up at me, 
shook her head with a slow, quiet movement, and I 
stopped short as if rooted there by the single step I 
had taken. After ten years I remember every de- 
tail, every glimmer of light, every fitful rise and fall of 
the breeze, as if, not visual objects only, but scents, 
sounds, and movements, were photographed indelibly 
on my brain. I know that the white moth fluttered 
about my head, and that raising my hand, I caught it 
in my palm, which closed over it with violence. Then 
the cry from little Benjamin came again, and opening 
my palm, I watched the white moth fall dead, with 
crushed wings, to the floor. When I forget all else in 
my life, I shall still see Sally sitting motionless, like a 
painted figure, in the faint, reddish glow of the night- 
lamp, while above her, and above the little waxen face 
on her knee, the shadow of the palm-leaf fan, waved 
by Aunt Euphronasia, flitted to and fro like the wing 
of a bat. 


394 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


At midnight the doctor came, and when he left, I 
followed him to the front steps. 

^^ril come again at dawn,^^ he said, ^'and in the mean- 
time look out for your wife. She^s been strained to the 
point of breaking.^' 

^^You think, then, that the child is — is hopeless 
^^Not hopeless, but very serious. 1^11 be back in a 
few hours. If there^s a change, send for me, and re-" 
member, as I said, look out for your wife.^^ 

I went indoors, found some port wine left in Miss 
Mitty^s bottles, poured out a glass, and carried it to 
her. 

Drink this, darling,^’ I said. 

As I held it to her lips, she swallowed it obediently, 
and then, looking up, she thanked me with her unfail- 
ing smile. 

'“Oh, weUl drink outer de healin^ fountain, by en bye, liP 
chillun,^^ 

crooned Aunt Euphronasia softly, and the tune has 
rung ever afterwards somewhere in my brain. To 
escape from it at the time, I went out upon the front 
steps, closed the door, and walked, restless as a caged 
tiger, up and down the deserted pavement. A home- 
less dog or two, panting from thirst, lay in the gutter ; 
otherwise there was not a sound, not a living thing, 
from end to end of the long dusty street. 

For two hours I walked up and down there, entering 
the house from time to time to see if Sally needed me, 
or if she had moved. Then, as the light broke feebly, 
the doctor came, and we went in together. Sally was 
still sitting there, as she had sat all night, rigid in the 


THE DEEPEST SHADOW 


395 


dim glow of the lamp, and over her Aunt Euphronasia 
still waved the palm- leaf fan with its black, flitting 
shadow. Then, as we crossed the threshold, there was 
a sudden sharp cry, and when I sprang forward and 
caught them both in my arms, I found that Sally had 
fainted and the child was dead on her knees. 

We buried the child in the old Bland section at 
Hollywood, where a single twisted yew-tree grew 
between the graves, obliterated by ivy, of Edmond 
Bland and his wife, Caroline Matilda, born Fairfax. 
On the way home Sally sat rigid and tearless, with her 
hand in mine, and her eyes fixed on the drawn blinds 
of the carriage, as though she were staring intently 
through the closed window at something that fascinated 
and held her gaze in the dusty street. 

^^Does your head ache, darling I asked once, and 
she made a quick, half-impatient gesture of denial, with 
that strained, rapt look, as if she were seeing a vision, 
still in her face. Only when we reached home, and Aunt 
Euphronasia met her with outstretched arms on the 
threshold, did this agonised composure break down in 
passionate weeping on the old negress^s shoulder. 

The strength which had upheld her so long seemed 
suddenly to have departed, and all night she wept on 
my breast, while I fanned her in the hot air, which 
had grown humid and close. Not until the dawn had 
broken did my arm drop powerless with sleep, and the 
fan fell on the pillow. > Then I slept for an hour, worn 
out with grief and exhaustion, and when presently I 
awoke with a start, I saw that she had left my side, 
and that her muslin dressing-gown was missing from 


396 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the chintz-covered chair where it had lain. When I 
called her in alarm, she came through the doorway 
that led to the kitchen, freshly dressed, with a coffee- 
pot in her hand. 

'^For God^s sake, Sally,’^ I implored, ^MonH make 
coffee for me!” 

^^IVe made it, dear,” she answered. couldn’t 
let you go out without a mouthful to eat. You did not 
sleep a wink.” 

^^And you?” I demanded. 

didn’t sleep either, but then I can rest all day.” 
Her lip trembled and she pressed her teeth into it. 
‘^By the time you are dressed, Ben, breakfast will be 
ready.” 

Her eyes were red and swollen, her mouth pale and 
tremulous, all her radiant energy seemed beaten out 
of her; yet she spoke almost cheerfully, and there was 
none of the slovenliness of sorrow in her fresh and 
charming appearance. I dressed quickly, and going 
into the sitting-room, drank the coffee she had made 
because I knew it would please her. When it was 
time for me to start, she went with me to the door, and 
turning midway of the block, I saw her standing on 
the steps, smiling after me, with the sun in her eyes, 
like the ghost of herself as she had stood and smiled 
the morning after my failure. In the evening I found 
her paler, thinner, more than ever like the wan shadow 
of herself, yet meeting me with the same brave cheer- 
fulness with which she had sent me forth. Could I 
ever repay her? I asked myself passionately, could I 
ever forget ? 

The dreary summer weeks dragged by like an eter- 


THE DEEPEST SHADOW 


397 


nity; the autumn came and passed, and at the first 
of the year I was sent down, with a salary of ten 
thousand dollars, to build up traffic on the Tennessee 
and Carolina Railroad, which the Great South Midland 
and Atlantic had absorbed. Sally went with me, but 
she was so languid and ill that the change, instead of 
invigorating her, appeared to exhaust her remaining 
vitality. She lived only when I was with her, and 
when I came in unexpectedly, as I did sometimes, I 
would find her lying so still and cold on the couch 
that I would gather her to me in a passion of fear lest 
she should elude the lighter grasp with which I had 
held her. Never, not even in her girlhood, had I loved 
her with the intensity, the violence, of those months 
when I hardly dared clasp her to me in my terror that 
she might dissolve and vanish from my embrace. 
Then, at last, when the spring came, and the woods 
were filled with flowering dogwood and red-bud, she 
seemed to revive a little, to bloom softly again, like a 
flower that opens the sweeter and fresher after the 
storm. 

^Gs it the mild air, or the spring flowers?” I asked 
one afternoon, as we drove through the Southern woods, 
along a narrow deserted road that smelt of the bud- 
ding pines. 

'^Neither, Ben, it is you,” she replied. have had 
you all these months. Without that I could not have 
lived.” 

You have had me,” I answered, ^^ever since the first 
minute I saw your face. You have had me always.” 

^^Not always. During those years of your great 
success I thought I had lost you.” 


398 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^How could you, Sally, when it was all for you, and 
you knew it?” 

'^It may have been for me in the beginning, but suc- 
cess, when it came, crowded me out. It left me no 
room. That’s why I didn’t really mind the failure, 
dear, and the poverty — that’s why I don’t now really 
mind this burden of debt. Success took you away 
from me, failure brings you the closer. And when you 
go from me, Ben, there’s something in me, I don’t 
know what — something, like Aunt Matoaca in my 
blood — that rises up and rebels. If things had gone 
on like that, if you hadn’t come back, I should have 
grown hard and indifferent. I should have found 
some other interest.” 

'^Some other interest?” I repeated, while my 
heart throbbed as if a spasm of memory contracted 
it. 

^^Oh, of course, I don’t know now just what I mean 
— but when I look back, I realise that I couldn’t have 
stood many years like that with nothing to fill them. 
I’d have done something desperate, if it was only 
going over gates after Bonny. There’s one thing they 
taught me, though, Ben,” she added, ^'and that is that 
poor Aunt Matoaca was right.” 

Right in what, Sally?” 

''Right in believing that women must have larger 
lives — that they mustn’t be expected to feed always 
upon their hearts. You tell them to let love fill their 
lives, and then when the lives are swept bare and clean 
of everything else, in place of love you leave mere 
vacancy — just mere vacancy and nothing but that. 
How can they fill their lives with love when love isn’t 


THE DEEPEST SHADOW 


399 


there when it^s off in the stock market or the rail- 
road, or wherever its practical affairs may be ? 

^^But it comes back in the evening/^ 

^'Yes, it comes back in the evening and falls asleep 
over its cigar/ ^ 

^^Well, youVe got me now,^^ I responded cheerfully, 
^Hhere^s no doubt of that, youVe got me now/’ 

''That’s why I’m getting well. How delicious the 
pines are ! and look at the red-bud flowering there over 
the fence ! It may be wicked of me, but, do you know 
— I’ve never been really able to regret that you lost 
your money.” 

"It is rather wicked, dear, to rejoice in my misery.” 

"I didn’t say I 'rejoiced’ — only that I couldn’t 
regret. How can I regret it when the money came so 
between us? ” 

"But it didn’t, Sally, if you could only understand ! 
I loved you just as much all that time as I do now.” 

"But how was I to be sure, when you didn’t want 
to be with me?” 

"I did want to be with you — only there was always 
something else that had to be done.” 

"And the something else came always before me. 
But my life, you see, was swept bare and clean of every- 
thing except you.” 

"I had to work, Sally, I had to follow my am- 
bition.” 

"You work now, but it is different. I don’t mind 
this because it isn’t working with madness. Just as 
you felt that you wanted your ambition, Ben, I felt 
that I wanted love. I was made so, I can’t help it. 
Like Aunt Matoaca, my life has been swept and gar- 


400 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


nished for that one guest, and if it were ever to fail me, 
Td — I’d go wild like Aunt Matoaca, I suppose.” 

A red bird flew out of the pines across the road, and 
lifting her eyes, she followed its flight with a look in 
which there was a curious blending of sadness with 
passion. The truth of her words came home to me, 
with a quiver of apprehension, while I looked at her 
face, and by some curious freak of memory there 
flashed before me the image of George Bolingbroke as 
he had bent over to lay the blossom of sweet alyssum 
beside her plate. In all those months George, not I, 
had been there, I remembered, and some fierce resent- 
ment, which was half jealousy, half remorse, made me 
answer her almost with violence as my arm went about 
her. 

^^But you had the big things always, and it is the big 
things that count in the end.” 

^^Yes, the big things count in the end. I used to tell 
myself that when you forgot all the anniversaries. You 
remember them now.” 

^^I have time to think now, then I hadn’t.” As I 
uttered the words I was conscious of a sudden depres- 
sion, of a poignant realisation of what this ^Hime to 
think” signified in my life. The smart of my failure 
was still there, and I had known hours of late when 
my balked ambition was like a wild thing crying for 
freedom within me. The old lust of power, the passion 
for supremacy, still haunted my dreams, or came back 
to me at moments like this, when I drove with Sally 
through the restless pines, and smelt those vague, 
sweet scents of the spring, which stirred something 
primitive and male in my heart. The fighter and the 


THE DEEPEST SHADOW 


401 


dreamer, having fought out their racial battle to a 
finish, were now merged into one. 

We drove home slowly, the lights of the little South- 
ern village shining brightly through a cloudless at- 
mosphere ahead — and the lights, like the spring scents 
and the restless soughing of the pines, deepened the 
sense of failure, of incompleteness, from which I suf- 
fered. My career showed to me as suddenly cut off 
and broken, like a road the making of which has 
stopped short halfway up a hill. Did she discern this 
restlessness in me, I wondered, this ceaseless ache 
which resembled the ache of muscles that have been 
long unused ? 

After this the months slipped quietly by, one placid 
Week succeeding another in a serene and cloudless 
monotony. Sally had few friends, there were no 
Women of her own social position in the place ; yet she 
was never lonely, never bored, never in search of dis- 
traction. 

love it here, Ben,” she said once, ^'it is so peace- 
ful, just you and I.” 

You’d tire of it before long, and you’ll be glad 
enough to go back to Richmond when next spring 
comes.” 

At the time she did not protest, but when the follow- 
ing spring began to unfold, and we prepared to return 
to Virginia in May, there was something pensive and 
wistful in her parting from the little village and from 
the people who had been kind to her in the year she 
had spent there. We had taken several rooms in the 
house of Dr. Theophilus, who was supported in his 
prodigality in roses only by the strenuous pickling 


402 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


and preserving of Mrs. Clay; and as we drove, on a 
warm May afternoon, up the familiar street from the 
station, I tried in vain to arouse in her some of the 
interest, the animation, that she had lost. 

You’ll be glad to see the doctor and Bonny and 
George,” I said. 

^^Yes, I’ll be glad to see the doctor and Bonny and 
George. There is the house now, and look, the doc- 
tor is in his garden.” 

He had seen us before she spoke, for glancing up 
meditatively from working a bed of bleeding hearts 
near the gate, his dim old eyes, over their lowered spec- 
tacles, had been attracted to the approaching carriage. 
Rising to his feet, he came rapidly to the pavement, his 
trowel still in hand, his outstretched arms trembling 
with pleasure. 

^^Well, well, so here you are. It’s good to see you. 
Tina, they have come sooner than we expected them. 
Moses” (to a little negro, who appeared from behind 
the currant bushes, where he had been digging), ^Hake 
the bags upstairs to the front rooms and tell your Miss 
Tina that they have come sooner than we expected 
them.” 

As Moses darted off on his errand, in which he was 
assisted by the negro coachman. Dr. Theophilus led us 
back into the garden, and placed Sally in a low canvas 
chair, which he had brought from the porch to a shady 
spot between a gorgeous giant of battle rose-bush and 
a bed of bleeding hearts in full bloom. 

^Tome and sit down, my dear, come and sit down,” 
he repeated, fussing about her. ^^Tina will give you a 
i‘.up of tea out here before you go to your rooms, and 


THE DEEPEST SHADOW 


403 


Ben and I will take our Juleps before supper. IVe 
been working in my garden, you see; there^s nothing 
so satisfying in old age as a taste for flowers. It's more 
absorbing than chess, as I tell George — old George, I 
mean — and it's more soothing than children. Were 
you far enough South, my dear, to see the yellow jessa- 
mine grow wild ? They tell me, too, that the Marshal 
Niel rose runs there up to the roofs of the houses. With 
us it is a very delicate rose. I have never been able to 
do anything with it, — but I have had a great success 
this year with my bleeding hearts, you will notice. 
Ah, there's Tina ! So you see, Tina, here they are. 
They came sooner than we expected." 

From the low white porch, under a bower of honey- 
suckle, Mrs. Clay appeared, with a cup of tea and a 
silver basket of sponge snowballs which she placed 
before Sally on a small green table; and immediately 
a troop of slate-coloured pigeons fluttered from the 
mimosa tree and the clipped yew at the end of the gar- 
den, and began pecking greedily in the gravelled walk. 

^^I'm glad you've come, my dears," remarked the old 
lady in her brusque, honest manner, ^^and I hope to 
heaven that you will be able to take Theophilus's mind 
off his flowers. I declare he has grown so besotted 
about them that I believe he'd sell the very clothes off 
his back to buy a new variety of rose or lily. Only a 
week ago he took back a dozen socks I had given him 
because he said he'd rather have the money to spend in 
a strange kind of iris he'd just heard of." 

most remarkable plant," observed the doctor, 
with enthusiasm, ^^the peculiarity of which is that it is 
smaller and less attractive to the vulgar eye than the 


404 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


common iris, of which I have a great number growing 
at the end of the garden. Don^t listen to Tina, my 
children, she’s a cynic, and no cynic can understand 
the philosophy of gardening. It was one of the wisest 
of men, though a trifle unorthodox, I admit, who ad- 
vised us to cultivate our garden. A pessimist he may 
have been before he took up the trowel, but a cynic — ' 
never.” 

am not complaining of the trowel, Theophilus,’' 
observed Mrs. Clay, ^Hhough when it comes to that I 
don’t see why a trowel and a bed of roses is any more 
philosophic than a ladle and a kettle of pickles.” 

Perhaps not, Tina, perhaps not,” chuckled the 
doctor, ^^but yours is a practical mind, and there’s 
nothing, I’ve always said, like a practical mind for 
seeing things crooked. It suits a crooked world, I 
suppose, and that’s why it usually manages to get on 
so well in it.” 

^^And I’d like to know how you see things, The- 
ophilus,” sniffed Mrs. Clay, whose temper was rising. 

^^I see them as they are, Tina, which isn’t in the 
very least as they appear,” rejoined the good man, 
unruffled. 

He bent forward, made a lunge with his trowel at a 
solitary blade of grass growing in the bed of bleeding 
hearts, and after uprooting it, returned with a tranquil 
face to his garden chair. 

But Mrs. Clay, having, as he had said, a practical 
mind, merely sniffed while she wiped off the small 
green table with a red-bordered napkin and scattered 
the crumbs of sponge-cake to the greedy slate-coloured 
pigeons. 


THE DEEPEST SHADOW 


405 


I judged you by what you appear, Theophilus,^^ 
she retorted, crushingly, should have judged you 
for a fool on the day you were born/’ 

This sally, which was delivered with spirit, afforded 
the doctor an evident relish. 

^'If you knew your Juvenal, my dear,” he responded, 
with perfect good humour, ^^you would remember: 
Fronti nulla fidesJ^ 

Rising from his seat, he stooped fondly over the bed 
of bleeding hearts, and gathering a few blossoms, 
presented them to Sally, with a courtly bow. 

favourite flower of mine. My poor mother was 
always very partial to it,” he remarked. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 

It was a bright June day, I remember, when I came 
to the surface again, and saw clear sky for the first 
time for more than two years. I had entered the 
office a little late, and the General had greeted me with 
an outstretched hand in which I. felt the grip of the 
bones through the flabby flesh. 

^^Look here, Ben, have you kept control of the West 
Virginia and Wyanoke ? he enquired, and I saw the 
pupils of his eyes contract to fine points of steel, as 
they did when he meant business. 

Nobody wanted it. General. I still own control — 
or rather I still practically own the road.^^ 

^^Well, take my advice and donT sell to the first 
man that asks you, even if he comes from the South 
Midland. Vve just heard that theyVe been tapping 
those undeveloped coal fields at Wyanoke, and I 
shouldnT be surprised if they turned out, after all, to 
be the richest in West Virginia.^' 

It was then that I saw clear sky. 

^HJl hold on. General, as long as you say,^’ I re- 
plied. Meanwhile, IJl run out there and have a look.’^ 
''Oh, have a look by all means. I say, Ben,'' he 
added after a minute, with a worried expression in his 
face, "have you heard about the trouble that old fool 
Theophilus has been getting into? Mark my words, 
406 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 


407 


before he dies, he’ll land his sister in the poorhouse, as 
sure as I sit here. Garden needed moisture, he said, 
couldn’t raise some of those scraggy, new-fangled 
things that nobody can pronounce the names of except 
himself, so he went to work and had pipes laid from 
one end to the other. When the bill came in there was 
no way to pay it except by mortgaging his house, so 
he’s gone and mortgaged it. Mrs. Clay, poor lady, 
came to me on the point of tears — she’ll be in the 
poorhouse yet, I was obliged to tell her so — and en- 
treated me to make an effort to restrain Theophilus. 

try to keep the catalogues from reaching him,’ she 
said, ^but sometimes the postman slips in without 
my seeing him, and then he’s sure to deliver one. 
Whenever Theophilus reads about any strange speci- 
men, or any hybridising nonsense that nobody heard of 
when I was young, he seems to go completely out of his 
head, and the worst of ’em is,’ she added,” concluded 
the General, chuckling under his breath, ^^Hhere isn’t 
a single pretty, sweet-smelling flower in the lot.’” 

'^I’m awfully sorry about the house. General. Isn’t 
there some way of curbing him ? ” 

never saw the bit yet that could curb an old fool,” 
replied the great man, indignantly; ^Hhe next thing his 
roof will be sold over his head, and they’ll go to the 
poorhouse, that’s what I told Mrs. Clay. Poor lady, 
she was really in a terrible state of mind.” 

Surely you won’t let it come to that. Wait till 
these dreamed-of coal fields materialise and I’ll take 
over that mortgage.” 

The General’s lower lip shot out with a sulky and 
forbidding expression. 


408 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^The best thing that could happen to the old fool 
would be to have his house sold above him, and by Jove, 
if he doesn^t cease his extravagance, Idl stand off and 
let them do it as sure as my name is George Boling- 
broke. What Theophilus needs,’^ he concluded an- 
grily, ^4s discipline. 

^^It’s too late to begin to discipline a man of over 
eighty.'' 

^^No, it ain't," retorted the General; ^4t's never too 
late. If it doesn't do him any good in this world, it 
will be sure to benefit him in the next. He's entirely 
too opinionated, that's the trouble with him. Do 
you remember the way he sat up over there on Church 
Hill, and tried to beat me down that Robert Carring- 
ton lived inBushrod's house, and that he'd attended him 
there in his last illness ? As if I didn't know Bushrod 
Carrington as well as my own brother. Got all his 
clothes in Paris. Can see him now as he used to come 
to church in one of his waistcoats of peachblow brocade. 
Yet you heard Theophilus stick out against me. 
Wouldn't give in even when I offered to take him 
straight to Bushrod 's grave in Saint John's Churchyard, 
where I had helped to lay him. That's at the back 
of the whole thing, I tell you. If Theophilus had had a 
little discipline, this would never have happened." 

All the same I hope you won't let it come to a sale," 
I responded, as a bunch of telegrams was brought to 
him, and we settled down to our morning's work. 

In the afternoon when I went back to the doctor's, 1 
found Sally in the low canvas chair between the giant- 
of-battle rose-bush and the bleeding hearts, with George 
Bolingbroke on the ground at her feet, reading to her, 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 


409 


I noticed at a glance, out of a book of poems. George 
hated poetry — I had never forgotten his contemptuous 
boyish attitude toward Latin — and the sight of him 
stretched there, his handsome figure at full length, his 
impassive face flushed with a fine colour, produced in 
me a curious irritation, which sounded in my voice when 
I spoke. 

thought you scorned literature, George. Are 
you acting the part of a gay deceiver ? 

^^Oh, it goes well on a day like this,^^ he rejoined in 
his amiable drawling manner; ^Hhe doctor has been 
quoting his favourite verse of Horace to us. He has had 
trouble with his hybridising or something, so he tells 
us — what is it, doctor? I^m no good at Latin. 

Dr. Theophilus, who was planting oysters at the 
roots of a calla lily, having discovered, as he repeatedly 
informed us, that such treatment increased the number 
and size of the blossoms, raised his flne old head, and 
stood up after wiping his trowel on the trimly mown 
grass in the border. 

Aequam memento rehus in arduis servare mentemy^ 
he replied, rolling the Latin words luxuriously on his 
tongue, as if he relished the flavour. That verse of 
the poet has sustained me in many and varied afflic- 
tions. Not to know it is to dispense with an unfailing 
source of consolation in trouble. When using it at a 
patient^s bedside, I have found that it invariably 
acted as a sedative to an excited mind. I sometimes 
think,’' he added gently, ^Hhat if Tina had not been 
ignorant of Latin, she would have had a — a less 
practical temper.” 

Picking up the trowel, which he had laid on the grass, 


410 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


he returned with a calm soul to his difficulties, while 
Sally, looking up at me with anxious eyes, said: — 
Something has happened, Ben. What is it?^' 

I broke into a laugh. ^^Only that that little dead- 
beat road in West Virginia may restore my fortune, 
after all,’^ I replied. 

The next day I went to Wyanoke and reorganised the 
affairs of the little road. Shortly afterwards orders 
for freight cars came in faster than we were able to 
supply them, and we called at once on the cars of the 
Great South Midland and Atlantic. 

'Mf you werenT a friend, this would be a mighty good 
chance to squeeze you,^’ remarked the General; ^'we 
could keep your cars back until weM clean squelched 
your traffic, and then buy the little road up for a song. 
It’s business, but it isn’t fair, and I’ll be blamed if I’m 
going to squelch a friend.” 

He did not squelch us, being as good as his word ; the 
undeveloped coal fields developed amazingly and the 
result was that before the year was over, I had sold 
the little road at my own price to the big one. Then 
I stood up and drew breath, like a man released from 
the weight of irons. 

^^We can go into our own home,” I said joyfully to 
Sally. 'Hn a year or two, if all goes well, and I work 
hard, we’ll be back again where we were.” 

Where we were?” she repeated, and there was, I 
thought, a listless note in her voice. 

Doesn’t it make you happy?” I asked. 

'^Oh, I’m glad, glad the debt is gone, and now you’ll 
look young and splendid again, won’t you?” 

^H’ll try hard if you want me to.” 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 4U 

do want you to/^ she answered, looking up at me 
with a smile. 

The window was open, and a flood of sunshine fell on 
her pale brown hair, as it rested against the high arm 
uf a chintz-covered sofa. Her hand, small and child- 
like, though less round and soft than it had been two 
years ago, caressed my cheek when I bent over her. 
She was well again, she was blooming, but the bloom 
was paler and more delicate, and there was a fragility 
in her appearance which was a new and disturbing sign 
of diminished strength. Would she ever, even when 
cradled in luxuries, recover her buoyant health, her 
sparkling vitality, I wondered. 

The old Bland house, with the two great sycamores 
growing beside it, was for sale ; and thinking to please 
Sally, I bought it without her knowledge, filled, as it 
was, with the Bland and Fairfax furniture, which had 
surrounded Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca. On the 
day some eight or nine months later that we moved 
into it the sycamores were budding, and there were 
faint spring scents in the air. 

'^This is where you belong. This is home to you,^^ 
I said as we stood on the wide porch at the back, and 
looked down on the garden. '^You will be happy 
here, dearest. 

^^Oh, yes, 1^11 be happy here.^^ 

^Ht wonT be so hard for you when I^m obliged to 
leave you alone. I^m sorry IVe had to be away so 
much of late. Have you been lonely 

^HVe taken up riding again. George has found me 
a new horse, a beauty. To-morrow I shall follow the 
hounds with Bonny. 


412 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


be careful; Sally, promise me that you will be 
careful/’ 

She turned with a laugh that sounded a little reckless. 

There’s no pleasure in being careful, and I’m seek- 
ing pleasure,” she answered. 

The next morning I went to New York for a couple 
of days, and when I returned late one afternoon, I 
found Sally, in her riding habit, pouring tea for Bonny 
Marshall and George Bolingbroke in the drawing-room. 

I was very tired, my mind was engrossed in business, as 
it had been engrossed since the day of the sale of the 
West Virginia and Wyanoke Railroad, and I was about 
to pass upstairs to my dressing-room, when George, 
catching sight of me, called to me to come in and exert 
my powers of persuasion. 

‘^I’m begging Sally to sell that horse, Beauchamp,” 
he said. ^^She tried to make him take a fence this 
afternoon and he balked and threw her. At first we 
were frightened out of our wits, but she got up laughing 
and insisted upon mounting him again on the spot.” 

^^Of course you didn’t let her,” I retorted, with 
anger. 

^^Let her? Great Scott! have you been married 
to a Bland for nearly eight years and are you still 
saying, Get her’?” 

''I mounted and rode on with the hunt,” said Sally, 
looking at me with shining eyes in which there was a 
defiant and reckless expression. ^^He got quite away 
with me, but I held on and came in at the death, though 
without a hat. Now my arms are so sore I shall hardly 
be able to do my hair.” 

''Of course you’re not to ride that horse again, 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 


413 


Sally/ ^ I responded sternly, forgetting my dusty clothes, 
forgetting Bonny’s dancing black eyes that never left 
my face while I stood there. 

^^Of course I am, Ben,” rejoined Sally, laughing, 
while a high colour rose to her forehead. ^^Of course 
I’m going to ride him to-morrow afternoon when I go 
out with Bonny.” 

^^Ah, don’t, please,” entreated Bonny, in evident 
distress; ^^he’s really an ugly brute, you know, dear, 
if he is so beautiful.” 

feel awfully mean about it, Ben,” said George, 
“because, you see, I got him for her.” 

“And you got him,” I retorted, indignantly, “with- 
out knowing evidently a thing about him.” 

“One can never know anything about a brute like 
that. He went like a lamb as long as I was on him, 
but the trouble is that Sally has too light a hand.” 

“He’d be all right with me,” remarked Bonny, 
stretching out her arm, in which the muscle was hard 
as steel. “See what a grip I have.” 

“I’ll never give up. I’ll never give up,” said Sally, 
and though she uttered the words with gaiety, the 
expression of defiance, of recklessness, was still in her 
eyes. 

When George and Bonny had gone, I tried in vain to 
shake this resolve, which had in it something of the 
gentle, yet unconquerable, obstinacy of Miss Matoaca. 

“Promise me, Sally, that you will not attempt to 
ride that horse again,” I entreated. 

Turning from me, she walked slowly to the end of 
the room and bent over the box of sweet alyssum, 
which still blossomed under a canary cage on the 


414 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


window-sill. A cedar log was burning on the andirons, 
and the red light of the flames fell on the tapestried 
furniture, on the quaint inlaid spinet in one corner, 
and on the portrait above it of Miss Mitty and Miss 
Matoaca clasping hands under a garland of roses. 

^^Will you promise me, dearest?^' I asked again, 
for she did not answer. 

Lifting her head from the flowers, she stood with her 
hand on one of the delicate curtains, and her figure, 
in its straight black habit, drawn very erect. 

^^I’ll ride him,” she responded quietly, ^4f — if 
he kills me.” 

^^But why — why — what on earth is the use of 
taking so great a risk?” I demanded. 

A humorous expression shot into her face, and I 
saw her full, red lips grow tremulous with laughter. 

^‘That,” she answered, after a moment, my 
ambition. All of us have an ambition, you know, 
women as well as men.” 

^^An ambition?” I repeated, and looked in mysti- 
fication at the portrait above the spinet. 

^‘It sounds strange to you,” she went on, '^but why 
shouldn't I have one ? I was a very promising horse- 
woman before my marriage, and my ambition now is 
to — to go after Bonny. Only Bonny says I can^t,” 
she added regretfully, because of my hands.” 

^^They are too small?” 

''Too small and too light. They canT hold things.” 

"Well, theyVe managed to hold one at any rate,” 
I responded gaily, though I added seriously the minute 
afterward, "If youfll let mQ sell that horse, darling, 
ril give you anything on God's earth that you want.” 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 


415 


'^But suppose I don't want anything on God^s 
earth except that horse 

^'There's no sense in that/' I blurted out, in bewilder- 
ment. “What in thunder is there about the brute 
that has so taken your fancy?" 

Her hand fell from the curtain, and plucking a single 
blossom of sweet alyssum, she came back to the hearth 
holding it to her lips. 

“ He has taken my fancy," she replied, “ because he 
is exciting — and I am craving excitement." 

“But you never used to want excitement." 

“People change, all the poets and philosophers tell 
us. I've wanted it very badly indeed for the last 
six or eight months." 

“Just since we've recovered our money?" 

“Well, one can't have excitement without money, 
can one? It costs a good deal. Beauchamp sold for 
sixteen hundred dollars." 

“He'd sell for sixteen to-morrow if I had my way." 

“But you haven’t. He's the only excitement I have 
and I mean to keep him. I shall go out again with the 
hounds on Saturday." 

“If you do, you'll make me miserable, Sally. I 
shan't be able to do a stroke of work." 

“Then you'll be very foolish, Ben," she responded, 
and when I would have still pressed the point, she ran 
out of the room with the remark that she must have a 
hot bath before dinner. “If I don't I'll be too stiff 
to mount," she called back defiantly as she went up 
the staircase. 

All night I worried over the supremacy of Beau- 
champ, but on the morrow she was kept in bed by the 


410 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


results of her fall, and before she was up again, George 
had spirited the horse off somewhere to a farm in the 
country. 

^^I’d have turned horse thief before I^d have let her 
get on him again,’' he said. bought the brute, so 
I had the best right to dispose of him as I wanted to.” 

Well, I hope you’ll do better next time,” I returned. 

Sally has got some absurd idea in her head about 
rivalling Bonny Marshall, but she never will because 
she isn’t built that way.” 

^^No, she isn’t built that way,” he agreed, ^^and I’m 
glad of it. When I want a boy I’d rather have him in 
breeches than in skirts. Is she out of bed yet?” 

^^She was up this morning, and on the point of tele* 
phoning to the stables when I left the house.” 

He laughed softly. ^^Well, my word goes at the 
stables,” he rejoined, ^^so you needn’t worry. I’ll 
not let any harm come to her.” 

The tone in which he spoke, pleasant as it was, 
wounded my pride of possession in some inexplicable 
manner. Sally was safe! It was all taken out of 
my hands, and the only thing that remained for me 
was to return with a tranquil mind to my affairs. In 
spite of myself this constant beneficent intervention 
of George in my life fretted my temper. If he would 
only fail sometimes! If he would only make a mis^ 
take ! If he would only attend to his own difficulties, 
and leave mine to go wrong if they pleased ! 

This was on my way up-town in the afternoon, and 
when I reached home, I found Sally lying on a couch 
in her upstairs sitting-room, with an uncut novel in 
her hands. 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 


417 


'^Ben, did you sell Beauchamp ? she asked, as I 
entered, and her tone was full of suppressed resent- 
ment, of indignant surprise. 

^^I’m sorry to say I didn’t, dear,” I responded cheer- 
fully, ^^for I should certainly have done so if George 
hadn’t been too quick for me.” 

^^It was George, then,” she said, and her voice lost 
its resentment. 

^^Yes, it was George — everything is George,” I 
retorted, in an irascible tone. 

Her eyebrows arched, not playfully as they were 
used to do, but in surprise or perplexity. 

^^He has been very good to me all my life,” she 
answered quietly. 

know, I know,” I said, repenting at once of my 
temper, ^^and if you want another horse, Sally, you 
shall have it — George will find you a gentle one this 
time.” 

She shook her head, smiling a little. 

don’t want a gentle one. I wanted Beauchamp, 
and since he has gone I don’t think I care to ride any 
more. Bonny is right, I suppose, I could never keep 
up with her.” 

''Just as you like, sweetheart, but for my part, I 
feel easier, somehow, when you* don’t go out with the 
hounds. I’d rather you wouldn’t do such rough 
riding.” 

"That’s because like most men you have an ideal of 
a 'faire ladye,”' she answered, mockingly. "I’m not 
sure, however, that the huntress hasn’t the best of it. 
What an empty existence the 'faire ladye’ must have 
led!” 


2s; 


418 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


At first I thought her determination was uttered in 
jest, and would not endure through the night; but as 
the weeks and the months went by and she still re- 
fused to consider the purchase of the various horses 
George put through their paces before her, I realised 
that she really meant, as she had said, to give up her 
brief dream of excelling Bonny. Then, for a few months 
in the spring and summer, she turned to gardening 
with passion, and aided by Dr. Theophilus and George, 
she planted a cart-load of bulbs in our square of ground 
at the back. When I came up late now, I would find 
the three of them poring over flower catalogues, with 
gathered brows and thoughtful, enquiring faces. 

‘^There^s nothing like a love of the trowel for making 
friends,^^ remarked the old man, one May afternoon, 
when I found them resting from their labours while 
they drank tea on the porch; ‘4t^s a pity you havenT 
time to take it up, Ben. Now, young George there 
has developed a most extraordinary talent for gar- 
dening that he never knew he possessed until I culti- 
vated it. I shouldnT wonder if it took the place of the 
horse with him in the end. What do you say, Sally 
he added, turning to where Sally and George were 
leaning together over the railing, with their eyes on a 
bed of Oriental poppies. was telling Ben that I 
shouldnT wonder if George^s taste for flowers would 
not finally triumph over his fancy for the horse.^’ 

For a minute Sally did not look round, and when at 
last she turned, her face wore a defiant and reckless 
expression, as it had done that afternoon when Beau- 
champ had thrown her. 

'‘I'm not sure, doctor," she answered; "after all 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 


419 


flowers are tame sport, aren^t they ? And George is like 
me — what he wants is excitement/’ 

^^I’m sorry to hear that, my dear, a gentle and quiet 
pursuit is a source of happiness. You remember what 
Horace says — ” 

^^Ah, I know, doctor, but did even Horace remember 
what he said while he was young?” 

George was still gazing attentively down on the bed 
of Oriental poppies at the foot of the steps, and though 
he had taken no part in the conversation, something 
in his back, in the rigid look of his shoulders, as though 
his muscles were drawn and tense, made me say sud- 
denly : 

^Hf George has changed his hobby from horse-racing 
to flowers. I’ll begin to expect the General to start 
collecting insects.” 

At this George wheeled squarely upon me, and in 
his dark, flushed face there was the set look of a man 
that has taken a high jump. 

^Ht’s a bad plan to pin all your pleasure on one 
thing, Ben,” he said. ^Hf you put all your eggs in 
one basket you’re more than likely to stub your toe.” 

^^Well, a good deal depends upon how wisely you 
may have chosen your pursuit,” commented the doctor, 
pushing his spectacles away from his eyes to his hair, 
which was still thick and long; don’t believe that a 
man can make a mistake in selecting either flowers 
or insects for his life’s interest. The choice between the 
two is merely a question of temperament, I suppose, 
and though I myself confess to a leaning toward plants, 
I seriously considered once devoting my declining years 
to the study of the habits of beetles. Your sug- 


420 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


gestion as to George, however, — old George, I am 
alluding to, — is a capital one, and I shall call his atten- 
tion to it the next time I see him. He couldn^t do 
better, I am persuaded, than bend his remaining ener- 
gies in the direction of insects. 

He paused to drink his tea, nodding gently over the 
rim of his cup to Bonny Marshall and Bessy Dandridge, 
who came through one of the long windows out upon 
the porch. 

^^So youVe really stopped for a minute,’^ remarked 
Bonny merrily, swinging her floating silk train as if it 
were the skirt of a riding habit, ^^and even Ben has 
fallen out of the race long enough to get a glimpse of 
his wife. Have stocks tripped him up again, poor 
fellow? Do you know, Sally, it’s perfectly scandalous 
the way you are never seen in public together. At the 
reception at the Governor’s the other night, one of 
those strange men from New York asked me if George 
were your husband. Now, that’s what I call positively 
improper — I really felt the atmosphere of the divorce 
court around me when he said it — and my grand- 
mama assures me that if such a thing had happened to 
your grandmama, Caroline Matilda Fairfax, she would 
never have held up her head again. ^But neither 
morals nor manners are what they were when Caroline 
Matilda and I were young,’ she added regretfully, 
^and it is due, I suppose, to the war and to the in- 
trusion into society of all these new people that no one 
ever heard of.’ When I mentioned the guests at the 
two last receptions I’d been to, if you will believe me, 
she had never heard of a single name, — ^all mush- 
rooms/ she declared.” 


I COME TO THE SURFACE m 

Her eyes, dancing roguishly, met mine over the tea- 
table, and a bright blush instantly overspread her face, 
as if a rose-coloured search-light had fallen on her. 

The embarrassment which I always felt in her pres- 
ence became suddenly as acute as physical soreness, 
and the blush in her face served only to illuminate 
her consciousness of my difference, of my roughness, 
of the fact that externally, at least, I had never managed 
to shake myself free from a resemblance to the market 
boy who had once brought his basket of potatoes to 
the door of this very house. The ^^magnificent ani- 
mal, I knew, had never appealed to her except as it 
was represented in horse-flesh; and yet the ^^mag- 
nificent animaU^ was what in her eyes I must ever re- 
main. I looked at George, leaning against a white 
column, and his appearance of perfect self-sufficiency, 
his air of needing nothing, changed my embarrassment 
into a smothered sensation of anger. And as in the old 
days of my first great success, this anger brought with 
it, through some curious association of impulses, a 
fierce, almost a frenzied, desire for achievement. Here, 
in the little world of tradition and sentiment, I might 
show still at a disadvantage, but outside, in the open, 
I could respond freely to the lust for power, to the 
passion for supremacy, which stirred my blood. Turn- 
ing, with a muttered excuse about letters to read, I 
went into the house, and closed my study door behind 
me with a sense of returning to a friendly and familiar 
atmosphere. 

Through the rest of the year Sally devoted herself 
with energy to the cultivation of flowers ; but when the 
following spring opened, after a hard winter, she seemed 


422 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


to have grown listless and indifferent, and when I 
spoke of the garden, she merely shook her head and 
pointed to an unworked border at the foot of the grey 
wall. 

can^t make anything grow, Ben. All those brown 
sticks down there are the only signs of the bulbs I 
set out last autumn with my own hands. Nothing 
comes up as it ought to.’^ 

Perhaps you need pipes like the doctor,^^ I sug- 
gested. 

‘^Oh, no, that would uproot the old shrubs, and be- 
sides, I am tired of it, I think.’' 

She was lying on the couch in her sitting-room, 
a pile of novels on a table beside her, and the delicacy 
in her appearance, the transparent fineness of her fea- 
tures, of her hands, awoke in me the feeling of anxiety 
I had felt so often during the year after little Ben- 
jamin’s death. 

'^I’m sorry I can’t get up to luncheon now, darling, 
but we are making a big railroad deal. What have 
you been doing all day long by yourself?” 

She looked up at me, and I remembered the face of 
Miss Matoaca, as I had seen it against the red fire- 
light on the afternoon when Sally and I had gone in to 
tell her of our engagement. 

didn’t go out,” she answered. ‘^It was raining 
so hard that I stayed by the fire.” 

You’ve been lying here all day alone?” 

Bonny Page came in for a few minutes.” 

'^Have you read?” 

^'No, I’ve been thinking.” 

'^Thinking of what, sweetheart?” 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 


423 


^^Oh, so many things. YouVe come up again, 
haven^t you, Ben, splendidly! Luck is with you, 
the General says, and whatever you touch prospers.'' 

^'Yes, I've come up, but this is the crisis. If I slip 
now, if I make a false move, if I draw out, I'm as dead 
as a door-nail. But give me five or ten years of hard 
work and breathless thinking, and I'll be as big a man 
as the General." 

^^As the General?" she repeated gently, and played 
with the petals of an American Beauty rose on the table 
beside her. 

As soon as I'm secure, as soon as I can slacken work 
a bit, I'm going to cut all this and take you away. 
We'll have a second honeymoon when that time comes." 

^^In five or ten years?" 

'^Perhaps sooner. Meanwhile, isn't there something 
that I can do for you? Is there anything on God's 
earth that you want? Would you like a string of 
pearls?" 

She shook her head with a laugh. ^^No, I don't 
want a string of pearls. Is it time now to dress for 
dinner?" 

Would you mind if I didn't change, dear? I'm 
so tired that I shall probably fall asleep over the 
dessert." 

An evening or two later, when I came up after seven 
o'clock, I thought that she had been crying, and taking 
her in my arms, I passionately kissed the tear marks 
away. 

''There's but one thing to do, Sally. You must go 
away. What do you say to Europe ? " 

"With you?" 


424 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


wish to heaven it could be with me, but if I 
shirk this deal now, I^m done for, and if I stick it out, 
it may mean future millions. Why not ask Bessy 
Dandridge?^’ 

don’t think I want to go with Bessy Dandridge.” 

Her tone troubled me, it was so gentle, so reserved, 
and walking to the window, I stood gazing out upon the 
April rain that dripped softly through the budding 
sycamores. I felt that I ought to go, and yet I knew 
that unless I gave up my career, it was out of the 
question. The railroad deal was, as I had said, very 
important, and if I were to withdraw from it now, it 
would probably collapse and bring down on me the 
odium of my associates. After my desperate failure 
of less than five years ago, I was just recovering my 
ground, and the incidents of that disaster were still too 
recent to permit me to breathe freely. My name had 
suffered little because my personal tragedy had been 
regarded as a part of the general panic, and I had, in 
the words of George Bolingbroke, ^^gone to smashes with 
honour.” Yet I was not secure now ; I had not reached 
the top of the ladder, but was merely mounting. ^Ht’s 
for Sally’s sake that I’m doing it,” I said to myself, 
suddenly comforted by the reflection; without Sally 
the whole thing might go to ruin and I wouldn’t hold 
up my hand. But I must make her proud of me. 
I must justify her choice in the eyes of her friends.” 
And the balm of this thought seemed to lighten my 
weight of trouble and to appease my conscience. 'Ht 
isn’t as if I were doing it for myself, or my own am- 
bition. I am really doing it for her — everything is 
for her. If I can hold on now, in a few years I’ll give 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 


425 


her millions to spend/^ Then I remembered that the 
last time I had gone motoring with her it had appeared 
to do her good, and that she had remarked she preferred 
a car with a red lining. 

tell you what, sweetheart,’^ I said, going back 
to her, '^as I can’t take you away. I’ll buy you a new 
motor car with a red lining and I’ll take you out every 
blessed afternoon I can get off from the office. You’ll 
like that, won’t you?” I asked eagerly. 

'^Yes, I’ll like that,” she replied, with an effort at 
animation, while she bent her face over the rose in 
her hand. 

A week later I bought the motor car, the hand- 
somest I could find, with the softest red lining; and 
when May came, I went out with her whenever I could 
break away from my work. But the pressure was 
great, the General was failing and leaned on me, and 
I was over head and ears in a dozen outside schemes 
that needed only my amazing energy to push them to 
success. Never had my financial insight appeared so 
infallible, never had my genius” for affairs shone so 
brilliantly. The years of poverty had increased, not 
dissipated, my influence, and I had come up all the 
stronger for the experience that had sent me down. 
The lesson that a weaker man might have succumbed 
beneath, I had absorbed into myself, and was now 
making use of as I had made use of every incident, 
bad or good, in my life. I passed on, I accumulated, 
but I did not squander. Little things, as well as great 
things, served me for material, and during those first 
years of my recovery, I became by far the most brilliant 
figure in my world of finance. ^^Pile all the bu’sted 


426 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


stocks in the market on his shoulders, and he ^11 still 
come out on top,’^ chuckled the General. ^^The best 
thing that ever happened to you, Ben, barring the 
toting of potatoes, was the blow on the head that sent 
you under water. A little fellow would have drowned, 
but you knew how to float. 

^^I^d agree with you about its being the best thing, 
except — except for Sally. 

'^What^s the matter with Sally? Is she going 
cracked? You know I always said she was the image 
of her aunt — Miss Matoaca Bland. 

'^She has never recovered. Her health seems to 
have given way.^’ 

^^She needs coddling, that's the manner of women 
and babies. Do you coddle her? It's worth while, 
though some men don't know how to do it. Lord, 
Lord, I remember when my poor mother was on her 
death-bed and my father got on his knees and asked 
her if he'd been a good husband (she was his third 
wife and died of her tenth child), she looked at him 
with a kind of gentle resentment and replied: ^You 
were a saint, I suppose, Samuel, but I'd rather have had 
a sinner that would have coddled me.' She was the 
prim, flat-bosomed type, too, just like Miss Mitty Bland, 
and my father said afterwards, crying like a baby, 
that he had so much respect for her he would as soon 
have thought of trying to coddle a Lombardy poplar. 
Poplar or mimosa tree, I tell you, they are all made 
that way, every last one of them — and nothing on 
earth made poor Miss Matoaca a fire-eater and a dis- 
turber of the peace except that she didn't have a man 
to coddle her." 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 


427 


give Sally everything under heaven I can think 
of, but she doesn^t appear to want it/' 

^^Keep on giving, it's the only way. You'll see her 
begin to pick up presently before you know it. They 
ain't rational, my boy, that's the whole truth about 
'em, they ain't rational. If Miss Matoaca had belonged 
to a rational sex, do you think she'd have killed her- 
self trying to get on an equality with us ? You can't 
make a pullet into a rooster by teaching it to crow, 
as my old mammy used to say." For a minute he was 
silent, and appeared to be meditating. ^‘1 tell yov 
what I'll do, Ben," he said at last, with a flash of in 
spiration, '^I'll go in with you and see if I can't cheer 
up Sally a bit." 

When we reached my door, he let the reins fall over 
the back of his old horse, and getting out, hobbled, with 
my assistance, up-stairs, and into Sally's sitting-room, 
where we found George Bolingbroke, looking depressed 
and sullen. 

She was charmingly dressed, as usual, and as the 
General entered, she came forward to meet him with 
the gracious manner which some one had told me was 
a part, not of her Bland, but of her Fairfax inheritance. 
'^That's a pretty tea-gown you've got on," observed 
the great man, in the playful tone in which he might 
have remarked to a baby that it was wearing a beauti- 
ful bib. “You haven't been paying much attention 
to fripperies of late, Ben tells me. Have you seen any 
hats ? I don't know anything better for a woman's low 
spirits, my dear, than a trip to New York to buy a hat." 

She laughed merrily, while her eyes met George 
Bolingbroke's over the General's head. 


428 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^‘1 bought six hats last month/ ^ she replied. 

'^And you didn^t feel any better 

^^Not permanently. Then Ben got me a diamond 
bracelet. She held out her arm, with the bracelet 
on her wrist, which looked thin and transparent. 

The General bent his bald head over the trinket, 
which he examined as attentively as if it had been a 
report of the Great South Midland and Atlantic Rail- 
road. 

“Ben^s got good taste, he observed ; ^Hhat^s a pretty 
bracelet.^^ 

Yes, it^s a pretty bracelet.’^ 

^^But that didnT make you feel any brighter 

^^Oh, I^m well,’^ she responded, laughing. '^IVe 
just been telling George I^m so well I^m going to a ball 
with him.^' 

'^To a ball,'' I said ; '^are you strong enough for that, 
Sally?" 

^^I'm quite strong, I'm well, I feel wildly gay." 

^'It's the best thing for her," remarked the General. 

Don't stop her, Ben, let her go." 

At dinner that night, in a gorgeous lace gown, with 
pearls, on her throat and in her hair, she was cheerful, 
animated, almost, as she had said, wildly gay. When 
George came for her, I put her into the carriage. 

'"Are you all right?" I asked anxiously. ^^Are you 
sure you are strong enough, Sally?" 

Quite strong. What will you do, Ben?" 

^^I've got to work. There are some papers to draw 
up. Don't let her stay late, George." 

^^Oh, I'll take care of her," said George. ^^Good- 
night." 


I COME TO THE SURFACE 


429 


She leaned out, touching my hand. ^^You^ll be in 
bed when I come back. Good-night. 

The carriage rolled off, and entering the house I went 
into the library, where I worked until twelve o^clock. 
Then as Sally had not returned and I had a hard day 
ahead of me, I went upstairs to bed. 

She did not wake me when she came in, and in the 
morning I found her sleeping quietly, with her cheek 
pillowed on her open palm, and a pensive smile on 
her lips. After breakfast, when I came up to speak 
to her before going out, she was sitting up in bed, in a 
jacket of blue satin and a lace cap, drinking her coffee. 

'^Did you have a good time? I asked, kissing her. 
“ Already you look better. 

danced ever so many dances. Do you know, Ben, 
I believe it was diversion I needed. IVe thought too 
much and I^m going to stop.’' 

That’s right, dance on if it helps you.” 
can’t get that year on Church Hill out of my mind.” 

^^Forget it, sweetheart, it’s over; forget it.” 

'^Yes, it’s over,” she repeated, and then as she lay 
back, in her blue satin jacket, on the embroidered 
pillows and smiled up at me, I saw in her face a reflec- 
tion of the faint wonder which was the inherited look cf 
the Blands in regarding life. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


THE GROWING DISTANCE 

The memory of this look was with me as I went, a 
little later, down the block to the car line, but meeting 
the General at the corner, all other matters were crowded 
out of my mind by the gravity of the news he leaned out 
of his buggy to impart. 

^‘Well, it^s come at last, Ben, just as I said it would,’’ 
he remarked cheerfully; ^^Theophilus is to be sold out 
at four o’clock this afternoon.” 

^H’d forgotten all about it. General, but do you really 
mean you will let it come to a public auction?” 

“It’s the only way on God’s earth to stop his ex- 
travagance. Of course I’m going to buy the house in 
at the end. I’ve given the agent orders. Theophilus 
ain’t going to suffer, but he’s got to have a lesson and 
I’m the only one who can teach it. A little judicious 
discipline right now will make him a better and a 
happier man for the remainder of his life. He’s too 
opinionated, that’s the trouble with him and always 
has been. He’s got some absurd idea in his head now 
that I ought to quit the railroad and begin watching 
insects. Actually brought me a microscope and some 
ants in a little box that he had had sent all the way from 
California. Wanted me to build ’em a glass house in 
my garden, and spend my time looking at ’em. 'Look 
430 


THE GROWING DISTANCE 


431 


here, Theophilus,^ I said, haven’t come to my dotage 
yet, and when I get there, I’m going to take up some- 
thing a little bigger than an insect. From a railroad to 
an ant is too long a jump.” 

^^But this auction. General, I’m very much worried 
about it. You know I’d always intended to take over 
that mortgage, but, to tell the truth, it escaped my 
memory.” 

^^Oh, leave that to me, leave that to me,” responded 
the great man serenely. '^Theophilus ain’t going to 
suffer, but a little discipline won’t do him any harm.” 

His plan was well laid, I saw, but the best-laid plans, 
as the great man himself might have informed me, are 
not always those that are destined to reach maturity. 
When I had parted from him, I fell, almost uncon- 
sciously, to scheming on my own account, and the 
result was that before going into my office, I looked up 
the real estate agent who had charge of the auction, and 
took over the mortgage which too great an indulgence 
in roses had forced upon Dr. Theophilus. In my lunch- 
eon hour I rushed up to the house, where I found Mrs. 
Clay, with a big wooden ladle in her hand, wandering 
distractedly between the outside kitchen and the little 
garden, where the doctor was placidly spraying his 
roses with a solution of kerosene oil. 

^‘1 knew it would come,” said the poor lady, in tears ; 
^^no amount of preserves and pickles could support the 
extravagance of Theophilus. More than two years ago 
George Bolingbroke warned me that I should end my 
days in the poorhouse, and it has come at last. As for 
Theophilus, even the thought of the poorhouse does 
not appear to disturb him. He does nothing but walk 


432 


THE KOMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


around and repeat some foolish Latin verse about 
iEquam — sequam — until I am sick of the very 
sound — 

When I explained to her that the auction would be 
postponed, at least for another century, she recovered 
her temper and her spirit, and observed emphatically 
that she hoped the lesson would do Theophilus good. 

^^May I go out to him now?^’ 

'^Oh, yes, youll find him somewhere in the garden. 
He has just been in with a watering-pot to ask for 
kerosene oil/^ 

In the centre of the gravelled walk, between the 
shining rows of oyster shells, the doctor stood energeti- 
cally spraying his roses. At the sound of my step he 
looked round with a tranquil face, his long white hair 
blowing in the breeze above his spectacles, which he 
wore, as usual when he was not reading, pushed up on 
his forehead. 

^^Ah, Ben, you find us afflicted, but not despondent,'^ 
he observed. ^^Now is the time, as I just remarked to 
Tina a minute ago, to prove the unfailing support of a 
knowledge of Latin and of the poet Horace, ^quam 
memento — " 

^H'm afraid, doctor, I haven't time for Horace," I 
returned, ruthlessly cutting short his enjoyment, 
while the sonorous sentence still rolled in his mouth ; 

but I've attended to this affair of the mortgage, and 
you shan't be bothered again. Why on earth didn't 
you come to me sooner about it?" 

Bending over, he plucked a rosebud with a canker 
at the heart, and stood meditatively surveying it. 
'^An Anna von Diesbach," he observed, ^^and when 


THE GROWING DISTANCE 


433 


perfect a most beautiful rose. The truth was, my boy, 
that I felt a delicacy about approaching my friends in 
the hour of my misfortunes. Old George I did go to 
in my extremity, but I fear, Ben, — I seriously fear 
that I have estranged old George by making him a pres- 
ent of a little box of ants. He imagines, I fancy, that I 
intended a reflection upon his intelligence. Because 
the ant is small, he concludes, unreasonably, that it is 
unworthy. On the contrary, as I endeavoured to con- 
vince him, it possesses a degree of sagacity and fore- 
sight the human being might well envy — ” 

“1 canT stop now, doctor, I^m in too great a rush, 
but remember, if you ever have a few hundred dollars 
you^d like me to turn over for you, I^m at your service. 
At all events, preserve your calm soul and leave me to 
contend with your difficulties — ” 

'^The word ^ preserve,^ ” commented the doctor, 
^Hhough used in a different and less practical sense, 
reminds me of Tina. She has sacrificed her peace of 
mind to preserves, as I told her this morning. Even I 
should find it impossible to maintain an equable 
character, if I lived in the atmosphere of a stove and 
devoted my energies to a kettle. One^s occupation has, 
without doubt, a marked influence upon one’s attitude 
towards the universe. This was in my thoughts entirely 
when I suggested to a man of old George’s headstrong 
and undisciplined nature that he would do well to in- 
vestigate the habits of a sober and industrious insect 
like the ant. He has led an improvident life, and I 
thought that as he neared his end, whatever would 
promote a philosophic cast of mind would inevitably 
benefit his declining years — ” 

2r 


434 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

doesn't like to be reminded that they are declin- 
ing, doctor, that's the trouble," I returned, as I shook 
hands hurriedly, and went on down the gravelled walk 
between the oyster shells to the gate that opened, 
beyond the currant bushes, out into the street. 

My readjustment of the doctor's affairs had occupied 
no small part of my working day, and it was even later 
than usual when I arrived at home, too tired to consider 
dressing for dinner. At the door old Esdras announced 
that Sally had already gone to dine with Bonny Mar- 
shall, and would go to the theatre afterwards. 

^^Was she alone, Esdras?" 

^^Naw, suh, Marse George he done come fur her en 
ca'ried her off." 

^^Well, I'll dine just as I am, and as soon as it's 
ready." 

The house was empty and deserted without Sally, 
and the perfume of a mimosa tree, which floated 
in on the warm breeze as I entered the drawing-room, 
came to me like the sweet, vague scent of her hair and 
her gown. A dim light burned under a pink shade in 
one corner, and so quiet appeared the quaint old room, 
with its faded cashmere rugs and its tapestried furniture, 
that the eyes of the painted Blands and Fairfaxes 
seemed alive as they looked down on me from the high 
white walls. From his wire cage, shrouded in a silk 
cover, the new canary piped a single enquiring note 
as he heard my step. 

I dined alone, waited on in a paternal, though 
condescending, manner by old Esdras, and when I had 
finished my coffee I sat for a few minutes with a cigar 
on the porch, where the branches of the mimosa tree in 


THE GROWING DISTANCE 


435 


full bloom drooped over the white railing. While I sat 
there, I thought drowsily of many things — of the 
various financial schemes in which I was now involved ; 
of the big railroad deal which I had refused to shirk 
and which meant possible millions ; of the fact that the 
General was rapidly aging, and had already spoken of 
resigning the presidency of the Great South Midland 
and Atlantic. Then there flashed before me suddenly, 
in the midst of my business reflections, the look 
with which Sally had regarded me that morning while 
she lay, in her blue satin jacket, on the embroidered 
pillows. 

^^How alike all the Blands are,’' I thought sleepily, 
as I threw the end of my cigar out into the garden and 
rose to go upstairs to bed; never noticed until of 
late how much Sally is growing to resemble her Aunt 
Matoaca.” 

At midnight, after two hours’ restless sleep, I awoke 
to find her standing before the bureau, in a gown of 
silver gauze, which gave her an illusive appearance of 
being clothed in moonlight. When I called her, and 
she turned and came toward me, I saw that there was 
a brilliant, unnatural look in her face, as though she had 
been dancing wildly or were in a fever. And this 
brilliancy seemed only to accentuate the sharpened lines 
of her features, with their suggestion of delicacy, of a 
too transparent fineness. 

^^You were asleep, Ben. I am sorry I waked you,” 
she said. 

^^What is the matter, you are so flushed?” I asked. 

^^It was very warm in the theatre. I shan’t go again 
until autumn.” 


436 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


don^t believe you are well, dear. IsnH it time for 
you to get out of the city?^' 

Her arms were raised to unfasten the pearl necklace 
at her throat, and while I watched her face in the mirror, 
I saw that the flush suddenly left it and it grew deadly 
white. 

^Ht^s that queer pain in my back,’^ she said, sinking 
into a chair, and hiding her eyes in her hands. ^Ht 
comes on like this without warning. IVe had it ever 
— ever since that year on Church Hill.’^ 

In an instant I was beside her, catching her in my 
arms as she swayed toward me. 

^^What can I do for you, dearest? Shall I get you a 
glass of wine?’^ 

'^No, it goes just as it comes,’’ she answered, letting 
her hands fall from her face, and looking at me with a 
smile. There, I’m better now, but I think you’re 
right. I need to go out of the city. Even if I were to 
stay here,” she added, ^^you would be almost always 
away.” 

^^Go North with Bonny Marshall, as she suggested, 
and I’ll join you for two weeks in August.” 

Shrinking gently out of my arms, she sat with the 
unfastened bodice of her gown slipping away from her 
shoulders, and her face bent over the pearl necklace which 
she was running back and forth through her fingers. 

Bonny and Ned and George all want me to go to 
Bar Harbor,” she said, after a moment. Then she 
raised her eyes and looked at me with the expression of 
defiance, of recklessness, I had seen in them first on the 
afternoon when Beauchamp had thrown her. 
you want me to go, too, that will decide it.” 


THE GROWING DISTANCE 


437 


course I shall miss you, — I missed you this 
evening, — but I believe it^s the thing for you/^ 

^^Then 1^11 go,^^ she responded quietly, and turning 
away, as if the conversation were over, she went into 
her dressing-room to do her hair for the night. 

Two weeks later she went, and during her absence the 
long hot summer dragged slowly by while I plunged 
deeper and deeper into the whirlpool of affairs. In 
August I made an effort to spend the promised two 
weeks with her, but on the third day of my visit, I was 
summoned home by a telegram; and once back in the 
city, the GeneraFs rapidly failing health kept me close 
as a prisoner at his side. When October came and I met 
her at the station, I noticed, with my first glance, that 
the look of excitement, of strained and unnatural 
brilliancy, had returned to her appearance. Some 
inward flame, burning steadily at a white heat, shone 
in her eyes and in her altered, transparent features. 

'^It^s good to have you back again, heaven knows, 

I remarked, as we drove up the street between the 
scattered trees in their changing October foliage. 
^^The house has been like a prison. 

For the first time since she had stepped from the 
train, she leaned nearer and looked at me attentively, 
as if she were trying to recall some detail to her 
memory. 

You^re different, Ben,^^ she said ; '^you look so — so 
careless.’^ 

Her tone was gentle, yet it fell on my ears with a 
curious detachment, a remoteness, as if in thought, at 
least, she were standing off somewhere in an unap- 
proachable place. 


438 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

“IVe had nobody to keep me up and IVe grown 
seedy/^ I replied, trying to speak with lightness. ^^Now 
1^11 begin grooming again, but all the same, IVe made a 
pretty pile of money for you this summer.^' 

'^Oh, money she returned indifferently, ^^IVe 
heard nothing but money since I went away. Is there a 
spot on earth, I wonder, where in this age they worship 
another God?^' 

know one person who doesn^t worship it, and 
that's Dr. Theophilus." 

She laughed softly. 

^^Well, the doctor and I will have to set up a little 
altar of our own." 

For the first month after her return, I hoped that she 
had come back to a quieter and a more healthful 
life; but with the beginning of the winter season, she 
resumed the ceaseless rush of gaiety in which she had 
lived for the last two years. She was rarely at home 
now in the evenings ; I came up always too tired or too 
busy to go out with her, and after dining alone, 
without dressing, I would hurry into my study for an 
hour's work with Bradley, or more often doze for a while 
before the cedar logs, with a cigar in iby hand. On 
the few occasions when she remained at home, our 
conversation languished feebly because the one subject 
which engrossed my thoughts was received by her 
with candid, if smiling, scorn. 

sometimes wish, Ben," she remarked one evening 
while we sat by the hearth for a few minutes before 
going upstairs, ''that you'd begin to learn Johnson's 
Dictionary again. I'm sure it's more interesting than 
stocks." 


THE GROWING DISTANCE 


439 


The red light of the flames shone on her exquisite 
fineness, on that ^Took of the Blands,” which lent its 
peculiar distinction, its suggestion of the something 
else,” to her delicate features and to her long slender 
figure, which had grown a little too thin. Between her 
and myself, divided as we were merely by the space of 
the fireside, I felt suddenly that there stretched both a 
mental and a physical distance ; and this sense of unlike- 
ness, — which I had become aware of for the first time, 
when she stepped from the train that October morning, 
between Bonny and George, — grew upon me until I 
could no longer tell whether it was my pride or my 
affection that suffered. I had grown careless, I knew, 
of ^Hhe little things” that she prized, while I so pas- 
sionately pursued the big ones to which she appeared 
still indifferent. Meeting my image in one of the old 
gilt-framed mirrors between the windows, I saw that 
my features had taken the settled and preoccupied look 
of the typical man of affairs, that my figure, needing 
the exercise I had had no time for of late, had grown 
already unelastic and heavy. Had she noticed, I 
wondered, that the ^^magnificent animal” was losing 
his hold ? Only that afternoon I had heard her laugh- 
ing with George over some trivial jest which they had 
not explained ; and this very laughter, because I did not 
understand it, had seemed, in some subtle way, to draw 
them to each other and farther from me. Yet she was 
mine, not George ^s, and the gloss on her hair, the scent 
of her gown, the pearls at her throat, were all the things 
that my money had given her. 

^HVe got terribly one-ideaed, Sally, I know,” I said, 
answering her remark after a long silence; ‘^but some 


440 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


day, in a year or two perhaps, when I^m stronger, 
more successful. I’ll cut it all for a time, and we’ll go to 
Europe together. We’ll have our second honeymoon 
as soon as I can get away.” 

Remember I’ve a reception Thursday night, please, 
Ben,” she responded, brushing my sentimental sugges- 
tion lightly aside. 

‘^By Jove, I’m awfully sorry, but I’ve arranged to 
meet a man in New York on Wednesday. I simply had 
to do it. There was no way out of it.” 

^^Then you won’t be here?” 

'^I’ll make a desperate effort to get back on the seven 
o’clock train from Washington. That will be in time ? ” 

'‘Yes, that will be in time. You are in New York 
and Washington two- thirds of the month now.” 

"It’s a beastly shame, too, but it won’t last.” 

With a smothered yawn, she rose from her chair, 
and went over to the canary cage, raising the silk 
cover, while she put her lips to the wires and piped 
softly. 

"Dicky is fast asleep,” she remarked, turning away, 
"and you, Ben, are nodding. How dull the evenings 
are when one has nothing to do.” 

The next day I went to New York, and leaving 
Washington on Thursday afternoon, I had expected to 
reach Richmond in time to appear at Sally’s reception 
by nine o’clock that evening. But a wreck on the road 
caused the train to be held back for several hours, 
and it was already late when I jumped from the cab at 
my door, and hurried under the awning across the pave- 
ment. The sound of stringed instruments playing 
softly reached me as it had done so many years ago 


THE GROWING DISTANCE 


441 


on the night when I first crossed the threshold ; and a 
minute afterwards, when I went hastily up the staircase, 
in its covering of white, and its festoons of smilax, 
pretty girls made way for me, with laughing reprimands 
on their lips. Dressing as quickly as I could, I came 
down again and met the same rebukes from the same 
charming and smiling faces. 

^^You are really the most outrageous man I know,’^ 
observed Bonny Marshall, stopping me at the foot ol 
the staircase. ^^Poor Sally has been so awfully wor- 
ried that she hasn^t any colour, and IVe advised her 
simply to engage George as permanent proxy. He is 
taking your place this evening quite charmingly.’^ 

The splendour of her appearance, rather than the 
severity of her words, held me bound and speechless. 
She was the most beautiful woman, it was generally 
admitted, in all Virginia, and in her spangled gown, 
which fell away from her superb shoulders, there was 
something brilliant and barbaric about her that went 
like strong wine to the head. A minute later she passed 
on, surrounded by former discarded lovers ; and before 
entering the drawing-room — where Sally was standing 
between George Bolingbi < ke and a man whom I did 
not know — I paused behind a tub of flowering azalea, 
and watched the brightly coloured gowns of the women 
as they flitted back and forth over the shining floor. It 
was a year since I had been out even to dine, and while I 
stood there, the music, the lights, and the gaily dressed, 
laughing women produced in me the old boyish con- 
sciousness of the disadvantage of my size, of my awk- 
wardness, of my increasing weight. I remembered 
suddenly the figure of President as he had loomed on 


442 THE KUMAJSCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the night of our first dinner party between the feathery 
palm branches in the brilliantly lighted hall; and a 
sense of kinship with my own family, with my own past, 
awoke not in my thoughts, but in my body. Across the 
threshold, only a few steps away, I could see Sally 
receiving her guests in her gracious Fairfax manner, 
with George and the man whom I did not know at her 
side ; and whenever George turned and spoke, as he did 
always at the right instant, I was struck by the perfect 
agreement, the fitness, in their appearance. These 
things that she valued — these adornments of the 
outside of existence — were not in my power to bestow 
except when they could be bought with money. How 
large, how heavy, I should have appeared there in 
George^s place, which was mine. For the first time 
in my life a contempt for mere wealth, and for the posi- 
tion which the amassment of wealth confers, entered 
my heart. In seeking to give money had I, in reality, 
sacrificed the ability to give the things that she valued 
far more? Surrounded by the flowers and the lights 
and the music of the stringed instruments, I saw her 
in my memory framed in the long window of our bed- 
room on Church Hill, with the dim grey garden behind 
her, and the breeze, fragrant with jessamine, blowing 
the thin folds of her gown. Some clairvoyant insight, 
purchased, not by success, but by the suffering of those 
months, opened my eyes. What I had lost, I saw now, 
was Sally herself — not the outward woman, but the 
inner spirit, the fineness of sympathy, the quickness of 
understanding. The things that she could have taught 
me were the finer beauties of life — and these I had 
scorned to learn because they could not be grasped in 


THE GROWING DISTANCE 


443 


the hands. The objective, the external, was what I 
had worshipped, and our real division had come, not 
from the accident of our different beginnings, but from 
the choice that had committed us to opposite ends. 

Some of the guests I knew, and these spoke to me as 
they passed ; others I had never seen, and these walked 
by with level abstracted eyes fixed on the little group 
surrounding Sally and George. It was not only Sally^s 
^^set^^ — the older aristocratic circle — that was rep- 
resented, I knew, for in the throng I recognised many 
of ^Hhe new people — of the mushrooms, of whom 
Bonny^s grandmama had spoken with scorn. Once 
George turned and came toward the doorway, and the 
General, starting somewhere from a corner, observed 
in his loud hilarious voice, *'1 don’t know what kind 
of husband you’d have made, George, but, by Jove, you 
do mighty well as a ' hanger-on’ !” 

What George’s response was I could not hear, but 
from the dark flushed look of his features, I judged that 
he had not received the attack with his accustomed 
amiability. Then, as he was about to pass into the 
hall, his eyes fell on me, standing behind the tub of 
azalea, and a low whistle of surprise broke from his lips. 

'^So here you are, Ben ! We’d given you up at least 
three hours ago.” 

“There was a wreck, and the train was delayed.” 

“Well, come in and do your duty, or what remains of 
it. It’s no fun acting host in another man’s house, 
when you don’t know where he keeps his cigars. Sally, 
Ben’s turned up, after all, at the last minute, when the 
hard work is over.” 

Crossing the threshold, I joined the little group, 


444 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


shaking hands here and there, while Sally made run- 
ning comments in a voice that sounded hopelessly ani- 
mated and cheerful. She was looking very pale, there 
were dark violet circles under her eyes, and her gown 
of some faint sea-green shade brought out the delicate 
sharpened lines of her face and throat. The flame, 
which had burnt so steadily for the last year, seemed to 
die out slowly, in a waning flicker, while she stood there. 

George, pushing me aside, came back with a glass of 
wine and a biscuit. 

Drink this, Sally,” he said. '^No, donT shake 
your head, drink it.” 

She held out her hand for the glass, but after she had 
taken it from him, before she could raise it to her lips, 
a tremor of anguish that was almost like a convulsion 
passed into her face. The glass fell from her hand, and 
the wine, splashing over her gown, stained it in a red 
streak from bosom to hem. Her figure swayed slightly, 
but when I reached out my arms to catch her, she 
gazed straight beyond me, with eyes which had grown 
wide and bright from some physical pain. 

^^George !” she said, ^'George !” and the name as she 
uttered it was an appeal for help. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


THE BLOW THAT CLEAES 

Until dawn the doctor was with her, but in the 
afternoon, when I went into her room, I found that she 
had got out of bed and was dressed for motoring. 

‘^Oh, I'm all right. There's nothing the matter with 
me except that I am smothering for fresh air," she said 
almost irritably, in reply to my remonstrances. 

‘^But you are ill, Sally. You are as pale as a ghost." 

She shook her head impatiently, and I noticed that 
the furs she wore seemed to drag down her slender 
figure. 

‘^The wind will bring back my colour. If I lie there 
and think all day, I shall go out of my mind." Her 
lips trembled and a quiver passed through her face, 
but when I made a step toward her, she repulsed me 
with a gesture which, gentle as it was, appeared to 
place me at a measured distance. wish — oh, I 
wish Aunt Euphronasia wasn't dead," she said in a 
whisper. 

^Hf you go, may I go with you?" I asked. 

For a minute she hesitated, then meeting my eyes 
with a glance in which I read for the first time since I 
had known her, a gentle aversion, a faint hostility, she 
answered quietly: — 


445 


446 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


am sorry, but IVe just telephoned Bonny that 
Fd call for her.” 

The old bruise in my heart throbbed while I turned 
away; but the pain instead of melting my pride, only 
increased the terrible reticence which I wore now as an 
armour. Her face, above the heavy furs that seemed 
dragging her down, had in it something of the soft, 
uncompromising obstinacy of Miss Matoaca. So 
delicate she appeared that I could almost have broken 
her body in my grasp ; yet I knew that she would not 
yield though I brought the full strength of my will 
to bear in the struggle. In the old days, doubtless, 
Matoaca Bland, then in her pride and beauty, had 
faced the General with this same firmness which was 
as soft as velvet yet as inflexible as steel. 

A few days after this, the great man, who had grown 
at last too feeble for an active part in ^'affairs,” re- 
signed the presidency of the South Midland, and 
retired, as he said, enjoy his second childhood.” 

^HFs about time for Theophilus to bring around his 
box of ants, I reckon,” he observed, and added seri- 
ously after a moment, '^Yes, there^s no use trying to 
prop up a fallen tree, Ben. IVe had a long life and a 
good life, and I am willing to draw out. It^s a losing 
game any way you play it, when it comes to that. 
IVe thought a lot about it, my boy, these last weeks, 
and I tell you the only thing that sticks by you to the 
last is the love of a woman. If you need a woman 
when you are young, you need her ten thousand times 
more when you're old. If Miss Matoaca had married 
me, we'd both of us have been a long ways better off.” 

That night I told Sally of the resignation, and re- 


THE BLOW THAT CLEARS 


447 


peated to her a part of the conversation. The senti- 
mental allusion to Miss Matoaca she treated with scorn, 
but after a few thoughtful moments she said : — 

^^YouVe always wanted to be president of the 
South Midland more than anything in the world 

''More than anything in the world,’' I admitted 
absently. 

"There’s a chance now?” 

"Yes, I suppose there’s a chance now.” 

She said nothing more, but the next morning as I 
was getting into my overcoat, she sent me word that 
she wished to speak to me again before I went out. 

"I’ll be up in a minute,” I answered, and I had 
turned to follow the maid up the staircase, when a 
sharp ring at the telephone distracted my attention. 

"Come down in five minutes if you can,” said a voice. 
" You’re wanted badly about the B. and R. deal.” 

"Is your mistress ill? ” I enquired, turning from 
the telephone to take up my overcoat. 

"I think not, sir,” replied the woman, "she is dress- 
ing.” 

"Then tell her I’m called away, but I will see her at 
luncheon,” I answered hurriedly, as I rushed out. 

Upon reaching my office, I found that my presence 
was required in Washington before two o’clock, and aj> 
I had not time to return home, I telephoned Sally fo*' 
my bag, which she sent down to the station by Micah, 
the coachman. 

"I hope to return early to-morrow,” I said to the 
negro from the platform, as the train pulled out. 

In my anxiety over the possible collapse of the 
important B. and R. deal, the message that Sally had 


448 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


sent me that morning was crowded for several hours 
out of my thoughts. When I remembered it later in 
the afternoon, I sent her a telegram explaining my ab- 
sence; and my conscience, which had troubled me for 
a moment, was appeased by this attention that would 
prove to her that even in the midst of my business 
worries I had not forgotten her. There was, indeed, I 
assured myself, no cause for the sudden throb of anx- 
iety, almost of apprehension, I had felt at the recol- 
lection of the message that I had disregarded. She 
had looked stronger yesterday; I had commented at 
dinner on the fine flush in her cheeks; and the pain, 
which had caused me such sharp distress while it 
lasted, had vanished entirely for the last thirty-six 
hours. Then the sound of her voice, with its note of 
appeal, of helplessness, of terror, when she had called 
upon George at the reception, returned to me as if it 
were spoken audibly somewhere in my brain. I saw 
her eyes, wide and bright, as they had been when they 
looked straight beyond me in search of help, and her 
slender, swaying figure in its gown of a pale sea-foam 
shade that was stained from bosom to hem with the 
red streak of the wine. Yet there is nothing to worry 
about,’’ I thought, annoyed because I could not put 
this anxiety, this apprehension, out of my mind. 
''She is not ill. She is better. Only last night I heard 
her laughing as she has not done for weeks.” 

The afternoon was crowded with meetings, and it 
was three o’clock the next day when I reached home 
and asked eagerly for Sally as I went up the staircase. 
She had gone out, her maid informed me, but I would 
find a note she had left on my desk in the library. 


THE BLOW THAT CLEARS 


449 


Turning hastily back, I took up the note from the 
silver blotter beneath which it was lying, and as I 
opened it, I saw that the address looked tremulous 
and uncertain, as if it had been written in haste or 
excitement. 

'^Dear Ben (it read), I have been in trouble, and as I 
do not wish to disturb you at this time, I am going 
away for a few days to think it over. I shall be at 
Riverview, the old place on James River where mamma 
and I used to stay — but go ahead with the South 
Midland, and donT worry about me, it is all right. 

Sally.” 

''I have been in trouble,” I repeated slowly. What 
trouble, and why should she keep it from me? Oh, 
because of the presidency of the South Midland ! 
Damn the South Midland !” I said suddenly aloud. A 
time-table was on my desk, and looking into it, I found 
that a train left for Riverview in half an hour. I rang 
the bell and old Esdras appeared to announce luncheon. 

want nothing to eat. Bring me a cup of coffee 
I must catch a train in a few minutes.” 

‘^Fur de Lawd^s sake, Marse Ben,” exclaimed the 
old negro, ^^you ain^ never gwineter res^ at home agin.” 

Still grumbling he brought the coffee, and I was 
standing by the desk with the cup raised to my lips, 
when the front door opened and shut sharply, and the 
General came into the room, leaning upon two gold- 
headed w’alking-sticks. He looked old and tired, and 
more than ever, in his fur-lined overcoat, like a wounded 
eagle. 

^^Ben,” he said, ^^what^s this Hatty tells me about 
2a 


450 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


George taking Sally out motoring with him y ester* 
day, and not bringing her back? Has there been an 
accident ? ” 

My arteries drummed in my ears, and for a minute 
the noise shut out all other sounds. Then I heard a 
carriage roll by in the street, and the faint regular 
ticking of the small clock on the mantel. 

Sally is at Riverview,^^ I answered, am going 
down to her on the next train.’^ 

^'Then where in the devil is George? He went off 
with her.’’ 

'^George may be there, too. I hope he is. She 
needs somebody with her.” 

A purple flush rose to the General’s face, and the 
expression in his small, watery grey eyes held me 
speechless. 

Confound you, Ben ! ” he exclaimed, in a burst of 
temper, ^^do you mean to tell me you don’t know that 
George’s blamed foolishness is the talk of the town? 
Why, he hasn’t let Sally out of his sight for the last 
two years.” 

^^No, I didn’t know it,” I replied. 

Great Scott! Where are your wits?” 

^Hn the stock market,” I answered bitterly. Then 
something in me, out of the chaos and the darkness, 
rose suddenly, as if with wings, into the light. ‘^Of 
course Sally is an angel. General, we both know that — 
but how she could have helped seeing that George is 
the better man of us, I don’t for a nunute pretend to 
understand.” 

^^Well, I never had much opinion of George,” re- 
sponded the General. 'Ht always seemed to me that 


THE BLOW THAT CLEARS 


451 


lie ought to have made a great deal more of himself 
than he has done/^ 

^^What he has made of himself/^ I answered, and 
my voice sounded harsh in my ears, ^^is the man that 
Sally ought to have married/^ 

I went out hurriedly, forgetting to assist him, and 
limping painfully, he followed me to the porch, and 
called after me as I ran down into the street. Looking 
back, as I turned the corner, I saw him getting with 
difficulty into his buggy, which waited beside the 
curbing, and it seemed to me that his great bulky 
figure, in his fur- lined overcoat, was unreal and intangi- 
ble like the images that one sees in sleep. 

The train was about to pull out as I entered the 
station, and swinging on to the rear coach, I settled 
myself into the first chair I came to, which happened 
to be directly behind the shining bald head and red 
neck of a man I knew. As I shrank back, he turned, 
caught sight of me, and held out his hand with an easy 
air of good-fellowship. 

'^So General Bolingbroke has retired from the South 
Midland and Atlantic Railroad, I hear,’’ he remarked. 

Well, there’s a big job waiting for somebody, but he’ll 
have to be a big man to fit it.” 

A sudden ridiculous annoyance took possession of 
me ; the General, the South Midland Railroad, and the 
bald-headed man before me, all appeared to enter my 
consciousness like small, stinging gnats that swarmed 
about larger bodies. What was the railroad to me, if 
I had lost Sally? Had I lost her? Was it possible 
to win her again? am in trouble,” the words 
whirled in my thoughts, ''and as I do not wish to dis- 


452 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


turb you at this time, I have gone off for a few days to 
think it over/^ Was the trouble associated with 
George Bohngbroke ? Did she mind the gossip ? 
Did she think I should mind it? Whatever it was, 
why didn^t she come to me and weep it out on my 
breast? didn^t want to disturb you at this time/' 
At this time ? That was because of the South Midland 
and Atlantic Railroad. ^^Damn the South Midland 
and Atlantic Railroad !" I said again under my breath. 

The red neck of the bald-headed man in front of me 
suddenly turned. 

Going down for a little hunting?" he enquired 
genially, “there isn't much else, I reckon, to take a 
man like you down into this half-baked country. I 
hear the partridges are getting scarce, and they are 
going to bring a bill into the Legislature forbidding the 
sending of them outside of the state. Now, that's a 
direct slap, I say, at the small farmer. A bird is a bird, 
ain't it, even if it's a Virginia partridge? " 

I rose and took up my overcoat. “I'll go into the 
smoking-car. They keep it too hot here." 

He nodded cheerfully. “I was in there myself, but 
it's like an oven, too, so I came out." Then he un- 
folded his newspaper, and I passed hurriedly down the 
aisle of the coach. 

In the smoking-car the air was like the fumes in the 
stemming room of a tobacco factory, but lighting a 
cigar, I leaned back on one of the hard, plush-covered 
seats, and stared out at the low, pale landscape beyond 
the window. It was late November, and the sombre 
colours of the fields and of the leafless trees showed 
through a fine autumnal nxist, which lent an atmosphere 


THE BLOW THAT CLEARS 


453 


of melancholy to the stretches of fallow land, to the 
harvested corn-fields, in which the stubble stood in 
rows, like a headless army, and to the long red-clay 
road winding, deep in mud, to the distant horizon. 

''I am in trouble — I am in trouble,'' I heard al- 
ways above the roar of the train, above the shrill 
whistle of the engine, as it rounded a curve, above the 
thin, drawling voices of my fellow-passengers, disput- 
ing a question in politics. “I am in trouble," ran 
the words. ''What trouble? What trouble? What 
trouble ? " I repeated passionately, while my teeth 
bit into my cigar, and the flame went out. "So 
George hasn't let her out of his sight for two years, and 
I did not know it. For two years ! And in these 
two years how much have I seen of her — of Sally, my 
wife? We have been living separate lives under the 
same roof, and when she asked me for bread, I have 
given her — pearls !" A passion of remorse gripped me 
at the throat like the spring of a beast. Pearls for 
bread, and that to Sally — to my wife, whom I loved ! 
The melancholy landscape at which I looked appeared 
to divide and dissolve, and she came back to me, not 
as I had last seen her, weighed down by the furs which 
were too heavy, but in her blue gingham apron with 
the jagged burn on her wrist, and the patient, divine 
smile hovering about her lips. If she went from me 
now, it would be always the Sally of that year of pov- 
erty, of suffering, that I had lost. In the future she 
would haunt me, not in her sea-green gown, with the 
jewels on her bosom, but in her gingham apron with 
the sleeves rolled back from her reddened arms and 
the jagged scar from the burn disfiguring her flesh. 


454 THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 

see him in hell, before 1^11 vote for himl^^ 
called out a voice at my back, in a rage. 

The train pulled into the little wayside station of 
Riverview, and getting out, I started on the walk of 
two miles through the flat, brown fields to the house. 
The road was heavy with mud, and it was like plough- 
ing to keep straight on in the single red-clay furrow 
which the wheels of passing wagons had left. All was 
desolate, all was deserted, and the only living things 
I saw between the station and the house were a few 
lonely sheep browsing beside a stream, and the brown- 
winged birds that flew, with wet plumage, across the 
road. 

When I reached the ruined gateway of Riverview, 
the old estate of the Blands^, I quickened my pace, 
and went rapidly up the long drive to the front of the 
house, where I saw the glimmer of red firelight on the 
ivied window-panes in the west wing. As I ascended 
the steps, there was a sound on the gravel, and George 
Bolingbroke came around the corner of the house, in 
hunting clothes, with a setter dog at his heels. 

Hello, Ben!’^ he remarked, half angrily. ^^So 
you Ve turned up, have you ? Has there been another 
panic in the market?^' 

“Is Sally here?^' I asked. “I^m anxious about 
her.” 

“Well, it^s time you were,” he answered. “Yes, 
she^s inside.” 

He stopped in the centre of the walk, and turning 
from the door, I came back and faced him in a silence 
that seemed alive with the beating of innumerable 
wings in the air. 


THE BLOW THAT CLEARS 


455 


^'Something's wrong, George, I said at last, break- 
ing through my restraint. 

He looked at me with a calm, enquiring gaze while 
I was speaking, and by that look I understood, in an 
inspiration, he had condemned me. 

"Yes, something's wrong,^^ he answered quietly, 
"but have you just found it out?” 

"I haven’t found it out yet. What is it? What is 
the matter?” 

At the question his calmness deserted him and the 
dark flush of anger broke suddenly in his face. 

"The matter is, Ben,” he replied, holding himself 
in with an effort, "that you’ve missed being a fool 
only by being a genius instead.” 

Then turning away, as if his temper had got the 
better of him, he strode back through a clump of 
trees on the lawn, while I went up the steps again, 
and crossing the cold hall, entered the dismantled 
drawing-room, where a bright log Are was burn- 
ing. 

Sally was sitting on the hearth, half hidden by the 
high arms of the chair, and as I closed the door be- 
hind me, she rose and stood looking at me with an 
expression of surprise. So had Miss Mitty and Miss 
Matoaca looked in the firelight on that November 
afternoon when Sally and I had gone in together. 

"Why, Ben!” she said quietly, "I thought you 
were in Washington!” 

"I got home this morning and found your note. 
Sally, what is the trouble?” 

"You came after me?” 

"I came after you. The General went wild and 


456 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


imagined that there had been an accident, or George 
had run off with you/' 

^‘Then the General sent you?" 

Nobody sent me. I was leaving the house when 
he found me." 

She had not moved toward me, and for some reason, 
I still stood where I had stopped short in the centre 
of the room, kept back by the reserve, the detachment 
in her expression. 

'^You came believing that George and I had gone 
off together?" she asked, and there was a faint 
hostility in her voice. 

^^Of course I didn't believe it. I'm not a fool if I 
am an ass. But if I had believed it," I added pas- 
sionately, '4t would have made no difference. I'd 
have come after you if you'd gone off with twenty 
Georges." 

‘^Well, there's only one," she said, ''and I did go 
off with him." 

"It makes no difference." 

"We left Richmond at ten o'clock yesterday, and 
we've been here ever since." 

"What does that matter?" 

"You mean it doesn't matter that I came away 
with George and spent twenty-four hours?" 

"I mean that nothing matters — not if you'd spent 
twenty-four years." 

"I suppose it doesn't," she responded quietly, and 
there was a curious remoteness, a hollowness in the 
sound of the words. "When one comes to see things 
as they are, nothing really matters. It is all just the 
same." 


THE BLOW THAT CLEARS 


457 


Her face looked unsubstantial and wan in the fire- 
light, and so ethereal, so Ueshless, appeared her figure, 
that it seemed to me I could see through it to the 
shining of the flames before which she stood. 

'"I can't talk, Sahy," I said, ''I am not good at 
words, I believe I'm more than half a fool as George 
has just told me — but — but — I want you — I've 
always wanted you — I've never in my heart wanted 
anything in the world but you — " 

^^I don't suppose even that matters much," she 
answered wearily, ^'but if you care to know, Ben, 
George and Bonny found me when I was alone and — 
and very unhappy, and they brought me with them 
when they came down to hunt. They are hunting 
now." 

‘^You were alone and unhappy?" I said, for George 
Bolingbroke and Bonny Marshall had faded from me 
into the region of utterly indifferent things. 

“It was that I wanted to tell you the morning you 
couldn't wait," she returned gently; “I had kept it 
from you the night before because I saw that you 
were so tired and needed sleep. But — but I had 
seen two doctors, both had told me that I was ill, 
that I had some trouble of the spine, that I might be 
an invalid — a useless invalid, if I lived, that — that 
there would never be another child — that — " 

Her voice faltered and ceased, for crossing the 
room with a bound, I had gathered her to my breast, 
and was bending over her in an intensity, a violence 
of love, crushing back her hands on her bosom, while 
I kissed her face, her throat, her hair, her dress even, 
as I had never kissed her in the early days of our 


458 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


marriage. The passion of happiness in that radiant 
prime was pale and bloodless beside the passion of 
sorrow which shook me now. 

^^Stop, stop, Ben,’^ she said, struggling to be free, 
'^let me go. You are hurting me.” 

shall never stop, I shall never let you go,” I 
answered, shall hold you forever, even if it hurts 
you.” 


CHAPTER XXXV 


THE ULTIMATE CHOICE 

We carried her home next day in George^s motor 
car, ploughing with difficulty over the heavy roads, 
which in a month^s time would have become impas- 
sable. A golden morning had followed the rain; the 
sun shone clear, the wind sang in the bronzed tree- 
tops, and on the low hills to the right of us, the har- 
vested corn ricks stood out illuminated against a deep 
blue sky. When the brown- winged birds flew, as they 
sometimes did, across the road, her eyes measured 
their flight with a look in which there was none of 
the radiant impulse I had seen on that afternoon 
when she gazed after the flying swallows. She spoke 
but seldom, and then it was merely to thank me when 
I wrapped the fur rug about her, or to reply to a 
question of George ^s with a smile that had in it a 
touching helplessness, a pathetic courage. And this 
helplessness, this courage, brought to my memory the 
sound of her voice when she had called George^s name 
aloud in her terror. Even after we had reached home, 
and when she and I stood alone, for a minute, before 
the fire in her room, I felt still that something within 
her — something immaterial and flamelike that was 
her soul — turned from me, seeking always a clearer 
and a diviner air. 


459 


460 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


^^Are you in pain now, Sally? What can I do for 
you?^^ I asked. 

^‘No, I am better. Don’t worry,” she answered. 

Then, because there seemed nothing further to say, 
I stood in silence, while she moved from me, as if the 
burden of her weight was too much for her, and sank 
down on the couch, hiding her face in the pillows. 

Two days later there came down a great specialist 
from New York for a consultation; and while he was 
upstairs in her closed bedroom, I walked up and down 
the floor of the library, over the Turkish rugs, between 
the black oak bookcases, as I had walked in that other 
house on the night of my failure. How small a thing 
that seemed to me now compared with this ! What 
I remembered best from that night was the look in 
her face when she had turned and run back to me 
with her arms outstretched, and the warm, flattened 
braid of her hair that had brushed my cheek. I 
understood at last, as I walked restlessly back and 
forth, waiting for the verdict from the closed room, 
that I had been happy then — if I had only known it ! 
The warmth stifled me, and going to the window, I 
flung it open, and leaned out into the mild November 
weather. In the street below leaves were burning, 
and while the odour floated up to me I saw again 
her red shoes dancing over the sunken graves in the 
churchyard. 

The door opened above, there was the sound of a 
slow heavy tread on the staircase, and I went forward 
to meet the great specialist as he came into the 
room. 

For a minute he looked at me enquiringly over a 


THE ULTIMATE CHOICE 


461 


pair of black-rimmed glasses, while I stood there 
neither thinking nor feeling, but waiting. Something 
in my brain, which until then had seemed to tick the 
slow movement of time, came suddenly to a stop like 
a clock that has run down. 

'^In my opinion an operation is unnecessary, Mr. 
Starr, he said, drawing out his watch as he spoke, 
''and in your wife^s present condition I seriously 
advise against it. The injury to the spine may not 
be permanent, but there is only one cure for it — 
time — time and rest. To make recovery possible she 
should have absolute quiet, absolute freedom from 
care. She must be taken to a milder climate, — I 
would suggest southern California, — and she must be 
kept free from mental disturbance for a number of 
years. 

"In that case there is hope of recovery 

For an instant he stared at me blankly, his gaze 
wandering from his watch to the clock on the mantel, 
as if there were a discrepancy in the time, which he 
would like to correct. 

"Ah, yes, hope,’^ he replied suddenly, in a cheerful 
voice, "there is always hope.^^ Then having uttered 
his confession of faith, he appeared to grow ner- 
vous. "Have you a time-table on your desk?^^ 
he enquired. "I'd like to look up an earlier train 
than the Florida special." 

Having looked up his train, he turned to shake 
hands with me, while the abstracted and preoccupied 
expression in his face grew a trifle more human, as if 
he had found what he wanted. 

"What your wife needs, my dear sir," he remarked, 


462 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


as he went out, ''is not medical treatment, but daily 
and hourly care/^ 

A minute later, when the front door had closed 
after him, and the motor car had borne him on his 
way to the station, I stood alone in the room, repeat- 
ing his words with a kind of joy, as if they contained 
the secret of happiness for which I had sought. "Daily 
and hourly care, daily and hourly care.’^ I tried to 
think clearly of what it meant — of the love, the 
sacrifice, the service that would go into it. I tried, 
too, to think of her as she was lying now, still and 
pale in the room upstairs, with the expression of 
touching helplessness, of pathetic courage, about her 
mouth ; but even as I made the effort, the scent of 
burning leaves floated again through the window and 
I could see her only in her red shoes dancing over the 
sunken graves. "Daily and hourly care,’^ I repeated 
aloud. 

The words were still on my lips when old Esdras, 
stepping softly, came in and put a telegram into my 
hands, and as I tore it open, I said over slowly, like 
one who impresses a fact on the memory, " What your 
wife needs is daily and hourly care.'' Ah, she should 
have it. How she should have it! Then my eyes 
fell on the paper, and before I read the words, I knew 
that it was the offer of the presidency of the Great 
South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. The end of 
my ambition, the great adventure of my boyhood, lay 
in my grasp. 

With the telegram still in my hand, I went up the 
staircase, and entered the bedroom where Sally was 
lying, with wide, bright eyes, in the dimness. 


THE ULTIMATE CHOICE 


463 


''It’s good news,” I said, as I bent over her, "there’s 
only good news to-day.” 

She looked up at me with that searching brightness 
I had seen when she gazed straight beyond me for the 
help that I could not give. 

"It means going away from everything I have 
ever known,” she said slowly; "it means leaving you, 
Ben.” 

"It means never leaving me again in your life,” I 
replied; "not for a day — not for an hour.” 

"You wUl go, too?” she asked, and the faint won- 
der in her face pierced to my heart. 

"Do you think I’d be left?” I demanded. 

Her eyes filled and as she turned from me, a tear 
fell on my hand. 

"But your work, your career — oh, no, no, Ben, 
no.” 

"You are my career, darling, I have never in my 
heart had any career but you. What I am, I am yours^ 
Sally, but there are things that I cannot give you 
because they are not mine, because they are not in 
me. These are the things that were George’s.” 

Lifting my hand she kissed it gently and let it fall 
with a gesture that expressed an acquiescence in life 
rather than a surrender to love. 

"I’ve sometimes thought that if I hadn’t loved 
you first, Ben — if I could ever have changed, I should 
have loved George,” she said, and added very softly, 
like one who seeks to draw strength from a radiant 
memory, "but I had already loved you once for all, I 
suppose, in the beginning.” 

"I am yours, such as I am,” I returned. "Plain I 


4C4 


THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN 


shall always be — plain and rough sometimes, and 
forgetful to the end of the little things — but the big 
things are there as you know, Sally, as you know/^ 

'^As I know,'' she repeated, a little sadly, yet with 
the pathetic courage in her voice; '^and it is the big 
things, after all, that I've wanted most all my life." 

Then she shook her head with a smile that brought 
me to my knees at her side. 

^‘You've forgotten the railroad," she said. '^You've 
forgotten the presidency of the South Midland — 
that's what you wanted most." 

My laugh answered her. ^^Hang the presidency of 
the South Midland!" I responded gaily. 

Her brows, went up, and she looked at me with the 
shadow of her old charming archness. By this look 
I knew that the spirit of the Blands would fight on, 
though always with that faint wonder. Then her 
eyes fell on the crumpled telegram I still held in 
my hand, and she reached to take it. 

‘^What is that, dear?" she asked. 

Breaking away from her, I walked to the fireplace 
and tossed the offer of the presidency of the South 
Midland and Atlantic Railroad into the grate. It 
caught slowly, and I stood there while it flamed up, 
and then crumbled with curled fiery ends among the 
ashes. When it was quite gone, I turned and came 
back to her. 

''Only a bit of waste paper," I answered. 


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